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“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” Confucius
Love at first sight isn’t a real thing—I know that. But there is certainly a something at first sight. A jolt, a magnetic draw, a heartbeat that skips and a world that narrows down, focusing on nothing but the space between you and that other person. It’s a moment when intuition overpowers reason and butterflies burst to life inside of you, their delicate wings tickling your heart.
“The stars won’t let you fall.” Gabe leans over to press a gentle kiss to my hairline. His lips linger as his thumbs dance across my skin, and then he says, “I won’t let you fall.”
But I’m a patient soldier, and I’ll wait. I’ll wait until she’s ready to see me for who I am, instead of as the man who is replacing her long-lost love.
The thing is, hope can be a savior, or it can be an executioner. There’s no way to know which way the cards will fall. Only time will tell, and time is just as unpredictable as hope.
“The heart is a complicated beast. Sometimes it wants, and sometimes it hurts to want.”
It doesn’t hold its curl in the same way my smile doesn’t hold its sparkle.
“It scares me to revisit my past, but…you told me once, there’s reward in overcoming the fear.”
“The reward just needs to be worth the uphill battle to reach it.”
Life is too short to waste precious time on people who don’t appreciate and value you—family or not.
I don’t look down, but I do allow myself to look back, because I know, undoubtedly, that looking back is the only way to keep moving forward.
“Time spent loving another is never time wasted. In fact, I’m apt to believe it’s the only time that truly matters in this life.”
“If you think for a second that I don’t have all the time in the world for you, then you’ve got me all wrong.”
I think that when your mind is full of serenity and sweet blessings, you find solace in the quiet moments.
It’s within the reckless moments that we truly live.
People love to say that time heals all wounds. They’re wrong. Time is nothing but a fingernail picking at the scabs, reopening those wounds the moment they start to itch, so they never truly heal. They just bleed out every now and then. Get infected. Cause deeper scars with every scratch and poke. Time doesn’t heal anything. It’s a pretty lie to help us cope. Time just makes it worse.
“Children start walking at their own pace, too,” she muses, eyes still aimed high. “It doesn’t matter if it’s at eight months or eighteen months, even though people like to tell you that something is wrong. They’ll say your child is falling behind if the process doesn’t line up with their own ideal timeline.” She tilts her head to the side, a silver earring glinting in a sunbeam. “Then, suddenly, those babies are all grown up, running and chasing and thriving, and you realize you hardly remember them ever crawling. All you see is how far they’ve come.”
“The when doesn’t matter, Tabitha. The amount of time it takes to pull yourself up on shaky legs is irrelevant,” she whispers. “One day, you just start walking. And you don’t look back.”
“I love you. But not with my whole heart, because my heart is no longer whole. I love you with the chewed-up, tattered pieces of it. The shredded remains that have somehow kept me alive for this long. And you don’t deserve that, Gabe. You don’t deserve to be loved with scraps, with the bloody leftovers. That’s not fair.”
“I’ll take your leftover pieces. I’ll cherish those pieces. And I’ll spend my whole damn life doing everything in my power to make your heart whole again.”
The emotions between us shift into something else, something more. Despair is still despair, but it bleeds with passion, and I think somewhere between the two is where Heaven and Hell collide. Fire and serenity. Madness and magic. Balance.
“Love’s not a competition, and it’s not always singular. I don’t care what the books say, or what society tells us. Don’t ever feel guilty for sharing your heart. You said it like it was a bad thing, but it’s not, baby. It’s not. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Life-altering moments took time to sink in.
“To rank the effort…above the prize…may be called…”
there’s always a crash. And I think if I’d have known… I never would have tried to fly.
When devastation sinks its teeth into you, you either hide yourself away and tend to the bite marks alone, or you surround yourself with laughter and good people, and let them help you bandage the wounds.
Maybe we can bring a smile to someone who needs it. I think there’s healing and growth to be found in watching other people overcome their own suffering.”
There is beauty in knowing that, sometimes, love does prevail. Trust, though fragile, exists. Loyalty, though hard-fought, is out there. It’s funny how quickly the weather can change. But I know, deep down, that rain doesn’t last forever.
“Life is so beautifully fragile,”
Life is so beautifully fragile.
It is; it really is—but love? No, love is not fragile at all. It’s long-lasting, bone-burrowing, and unshakeable. Real love doesn’t snap or fizzle out because of circumstances and tough decisions. It doesn’t just dissolve because you want it to, because you beg it to. Those things only make it hurt. Those things only make it sink deeper, until you’re choking on that love. Suffocating. Bleeding out while still breathing. Love latches on to you, consumes, and then it haunts you. Forever. Love isn’t fragile. It’s fucking shatterproof. Unfortunately, our hearts are not.
But here’s the thing about forever: forever is a measure of time, and time, I’ve learned, is painfully fickle. It’s fleeting. Unpredictable.
And then I realize… That’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? Living. Truly living. That’s what love is. It’s finding that perfectly imperfect person that complements your heart, that brightens your shadows, that sees your broken, mismatched parts and wants to spend the rest of their life piecing them into place. And even if those pieces never fully fit, they love you anyway. They love you more. And I think we forget sometimes, the whole point of it all. We forget the beauty of living while we’re still alive. And there is no better way to live than to love.
