True Love. Along the years I’ve collected thoughts and experience on True Love. This is what true love means to me…

True Love is immortal. It’s hard to pinpoint the beginning, as it seems it has always been there, maybe hidden from our heart’s sight – but there. Here comes to mind when you meet your soulmate, or your newborn baby. It is here with an old friend, picking up where we departed last time. And when a person you love dies, love doesn’t. It still stands as strong as it ever were. True Love is there even when we don’t think about it. Our loved ones are always with us.

True Love is imperfect in an imperfect world, but perfect in itself. It means picking up day after day our mate shoes [and dirty socks], our child’s toys all over the floor [again], or the phone for a loved one even if you’re having lunch [or the infamous dinner crisis with young children]. Because we love them, we will mention that we’d love some improvements, but we’d do what they need us to anytime. It means being of service. It means showing up, being there, and leaving our smartphone in our pocket. It means stepping up to it the best we can. Lots of us have been loved unconditionally, as parents know when they meet their child, but not everybody has stepped up to their love. This is why we should extend our imperfect daily ways of loving and try to shower with love more people so they know it very well too.

True Love unifies. To the point where it’s hard to tell where we begin or end. We feel our loved ones’ pains, and joys. Even if it does’t always agree, it is always understanding and compassionate. One doesn’t really want to hurt a truly loved one, as it hurts oneself too much.

True Love doesn’t die if romance does. It stays in the ugly and the hard. Even, it seems to grow stronger and beautifully on muddy grounds. It has nothing to do with appearances. It has nothing to do with written alliances. When you love someone and are loved, it is a deep, inner, unshakable conviction. Even if a “I love you” is always nice, it doesn’t need to be spoken out load. We just know.

True Love means loving ourselves too. An advice I would have loved in my first love relationships is that loving yourself is as important as loving others. If you love someone, good for you. A loving heart is the greatest gift. But if the other person in your relationship is not stepping up to his love, love yourself first and spend time, if you want, to finding the right ones that do.

True Love is what matters. The rest is accessory. We should devote our lives to it, from our inner circles to everyone and everything in our universe, to be sure, in the end, that we truly lived the best we could.

In loving memory of my godmother, Joane