A little essay-ish type thing.
True love can’t be hidden. It shines out of a person and makes itself known - no matter the circumstances, no matter the consequences. It has a way of speaking for itself, making words irrelevant.
While it’s hard to deny, it can also be hard to find. For some, it can be hard to accept. And sometimes, it can even be hard to recognize.
Because it doesn’t always arrive the way we imagine it will - in candlelit dinners and hothouse bouquets, in diamonds and poetry and grand gestures. True love is a far subtler proposition.
It doesn’t come embroidered on white ribbons carried in the beaks of bluebirds in an animated movie - it is written in the daily camaraderie of friendship, etched in the patterns of trust and understanding. It doesn’t gallop in on horseback at the last moment, as the music swells and the final credits roll - it comes quietly when it is least expected, when it is least sought.
It doesn’t stand up selfishly in the middle of a wedding and object - instead, it stands by and makes the sacrifice of watching as the vows are spoken. It doesn’t seek to hold the beloved back, to trap or ensnare or bind one who does not wish to be bound - it encourages freedom and growth.
It doesn’t necessarily look the way we expect it to look. Gender and race and age become irrelevant as souls find one another, guided by forces greater than themselves. Fate - God - the universe - even, perhaps, pure chance.
Love may arrive swiftly, in a sudden realization, in a beautiful surprise. Or it may come on so gradually that by the time it is recognized, we wonder how it wasn’t obvious all along.
However it arrives, whenever it arrives, it shows itself - it can’t be denied. Or stopped. Or killed. It may not always burn bright with passion, but it is never extinguished.
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(Author's note: I don't know where to go with this piece. I could take it into autobiographical territory and go all cathartic, or I could make it into an original fiction, or into a longer essay. Ideas / suggestions / concrit welcome!)