The Hardest Part, No Puns Intended.

What is it exactly that we build love upon? Love that is lustful and romantic and rewarding and jealous and insane and frightening all at the same time. When we say we love someone, what is it exactly that we love?

Do we love them for what they intrinsically are? Their good genes and commendable upbringing for example. That they are intelligent, good-looking, sweet-natured, passionate but sane, etc.

Or because of what they are capable of making you into? That they are inspiring, and encouraging, and kind and complementary to your personality such that when you're with them, you feel your life is moving forward and they move along with you.

Or because you feel you give them a lot, and you feel you're appreciated and wanted, and needed.

Or because time and chance throws you in together with someone under the most peculiar circumstances and paves a road for you to take?

Fuck knows. I think at the end of the day, despite all of the above, the only way it can work is if you believe it. But it's the same with all the other great motivations in life (love, ideas, expression). You can know all the rules, and you can manufacture the perfect conditions in which to achieve them, but in order for them to happen, you must believe you are capable of achieving them. And that they seek you. And it's the believing in them seeking you, that is the hardest part.

I think at the end of the day, love is essentially a construct like a fine great arch, reaching into the sky. You don't know how it stands, or why it stands. But once upon a time, it was built with scaffolding that is no longer there. And after a time, it doesn't matter what the scaffolding was made off, or how safe or sturdy it was. The arch either stands, or it doesn't, and the idea is to keep it standing.