Maybe This Is What It Really Means For Love To Conquer All

There was a time where I truly believed that love did not conquer all. I believed it so much that I wrote a story about it. 

I think maybe love doesn’t conquer all in the ways that we always hoped it would. It doesn’t conquer all in the ways society made us believe it to. You read it in the books and see it in the movies. ‘Never give up on love.’ ‘Anyone who stops fighting for someone they love never really wanted it enough.’ Trust me when I say that I completely understand this logic.

The thing is, we try to love so deeply through the pain. The pain that the person who came before us caused. The pain that our father left us with. Maybe even a lot of the pain was caused by the person you’re trying so deeply to love.

We try loving through mountains of discomfort. Storms of disappointment. Rivers of uncertainty. We think ‘if love conquers all, then we got this.’

One day we wake up and we realize that the only kind of love we know is not conquering all. Here’s the thing: Maybe the love that you expected to conquer all doesn’t in the way you dreamed it would. Maybe you need to dig deeper. Maybe it’s a different form of love that is conquering all. Maybe sometimes the truest form of love that can conquer all is the love that lets go. Maybe it’s the love that stops forcing. Maybe it’s the love that surrenders. Maybe it’s the love that moves on. Maybe it’s the love that decides to heal.

What if I told you that the love you thought didn’t conquer all is the portal that will bring you to the love that does. What if instead of loving through the pain, you learn to love from a distance? What if the love that isn’t conquering all brings you to a form of love that you never even knew existed? Forms of love that have been hidden within your heart this entire time.

What if the truest form of love you could share with this world is the love that fucking hurts? The love that burns. The love that takes your breath away. The love that strips you of everything. The love that brings you to your knees on the bathroom floor at 2 a.m. The kind of love that forces you across the country. The kind of love that asks you to look yourself in the mirror and say out loud, ‘We’re fucking beautiful and we’re going to be okay.’ The kind of love that breaks you only to rebuild you again. 

 Only this time, an even greater version. A version who stands up for what they believe in. A version who apologizes. A version who takes accountability. A version who loves wildly and freely. A version who shows up. A version who dances and sings. A version who howls at the moon. A version who asks for help. A version who was hidden inside of you this entire time.

 A version that was built from the love that supposedly didn’t conquer all. Of course it conquered all. It brought you back home.