love .

Love is a funny thing . You expect it to be easy . You expect it to be a world of roses and laughs and perfect moments that you find only in movies . You expect her/him to always say the right thing , and always know exactly how you feel , or exactly how to react to it . You expect her/him to calm you down when you're yelling or to chase you when you run away . You expect so much that you feel entirely , and utterly defeated when something doesn't exactly match up with all your plans . But that's the thing . Love isn't a plan . It doesn't have a certain beginning and it certainly has no end or visible finish line to those deeply in it . Love happens ; it is so incredibly messy . People around you can't comprehend why you do the things you do , or why you fight so hard for something that seems to cause you so much pain , because simply , they can't see . They can't see the invisible ring of insanity that surrounds you when you're in love . It's inconvenient and painful and devastating at times , but we can't live without it . What you don't learn is how hard love is . How much work it takes . How much of ourselves we have to put into it . How it isn't worth it until we are complete and utter idiots about it . Love isn't her/him calming you down when you yell . It's her/him yelling , just as loud , just as hard , right back at you , right in your face to wake you up and to keep you grounded . It isn't her/him bringing you roses everyday or cute things that make your relationship appear more presentable . It's after a long fight , that drains the life and bones right out of you both, and yet her/him showing up at your door the next morning anyway . It's not her/him saying all the right things or knowing exactly how to handle you . So no, it's not her/him caressing your hair and telling you everything is going to be alright . It's her/him standing there , admitting she's/he's just as scared as you are . You have to remember that with love , you're not the only one involved . You've unknowingly put your life , your heart into the palms of another persons hands and said , here . Do what you will . Break it into a thousand pieces . Or forget I ever handed it to you . As long as you have it . It makes us crazy . It makes reality invisible and it erases all the lines that we shouldn't cross . Because love isn't about fencing ourselves in ; feeling safe , feeling sure about the future . It's about scaring the shit out of every nerve in our body , but pushing forward anyway . Because all the fighting and all the tears and all the uncertainty is worth it . And it's a hell of a lot better , than being 100% happy without someone to show us that there is a world of a difference between feeling 'happy' and feeling whole .