The truth is – love exists in so much more than a romantic partner. Love is everything around you. And I hope you learn how to open your eyes to that. I hope you find love in every aspect of your life. I hope you find it tucked into early morning sunrises and the smell of your favorite places. I hope you find it strung between the laughter you share with friends, I hope it bounces off of you when you hug the people you care for, I hope it swells within your ribcage whenever you hear your favorite song or discover something that moves you. I hope you fall in love with growth, and change, and the messiness and the beauty of making mistakes, and becoming exactly who you want to be. I hope you find love in places that were once devoid of it, in places within yourself that you could have been softer to, kinder to, in the past. Because if there is one thing I have learned, it is that love is so much more than a human being who holds your heart. Love is everything around you. It is everything. //Caption. Maybe, when it comes down to it, love is not about chasing another human being. Maybe, love is about chasing yourself. Chasing your growth. Chasing your hope. Maybe love is about learning how to be gentle with yourself, how to believe in the way the Universe has removed certain people from your life. And maybe love grows within you when you learn how to trust your own heart, when you learn how to walk away from the things that have not cared for it. Maybe, love is about learning how to accept that sometimes even beautiful things end, that sometimes the timing isn't right. And maybe love is about learning that endings aren't something to regret; maybe it is about learning how to let go, how to appreciate the things you experienced at the hands of caring that were real and hopeful and light in a world that sometimes fails to be soft. Maybe, love is about learning how to be alone. Maybe it is about learning how to wake up in the middle of the bed. How to make just one cup of coffee in the morning. How to hold your own heart, how to take up space. Maybe there is beauty to be found in falling in love with your growth, in learning how to stop filling voids with other human beings, and instead, in slowly having the courage to heal those voids yourself. Maybe love is about learning how to be proud of the person you are stretching into, it is about embracing the beauty and the depth that exists in trying for something while you are here. And maybe within that, love is about honoring your heart.