The place where you continually return for love and acceptance—that's home.

Be loved for who you are, for everything that constitutes you. Be loved for your core beliefs, your strengths and weaknesses, your admirable traits and troublesome baggage. Be loved for you, because anything less is not love at all.

At the core of love is validation. It is what gives love power.
For when love is given away, validation seeps in and expands in the heart of the recipient, filling up every empty, dark corner. It is a wonderful, light, consuming feeling we long for, and once found, we hope—even expect—it will forever remain. But there are times when that most precious love is revoked, and a hard scab forms over the empty hole. Though this scab is both healing and protective, it is the reason why validation from future love may not seep in so easily, no matter how wanting the heart.

Love tickles parts of you that, prior to its influence, you didn't even know could feel.

To love is to accept a soul entirely, not wishing that the person was otherwise, nor hoping for change, nor clinging to some ideal past. To love is to cherish the individual standing before you presently―charms, quirks, and all. To love is to give someone a piece of your heart that you will never, ever reclaim.

Love in its essence is unconditional. When conditions, exceptions, and ultimatums are cast into the mix, its purity changes. It is no longer love and should be referred to by a less-desirable name.