It has taken me many, many years of my life to learn what love is, what it means, how it should feel. Those years I always knew something was off, something was wrong. I am the kind of woman who loves hard. I’m loyal. I do whatever humanely possible to make a situation better. I’m passionate. I will sacrifice my own happiness to be there for the one I love. I try to motivate and inspire. Many times, I have been told to have a heart of gold.

Physically writing this means I have finally learned what love is not and what kind of love I yearn for. Yes, I know. Everyone believes that love is this and love is that. But love should never feel like a burden. Your eyes should never cry because of love. Your heart should never sink because of love. You should never have to change your significant other if you love them.

The only kind of love I know is, complicated. When more bad outweighs the good that’s when you need to realize something needs to stop. I was young when I started to understand love and even now, I think I loved harder at 16 than I do at 21. All these years of a constant cycle, has put my emotions at a complete halt. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t even feel. As strong or tough as people think I am, I still have a heart. If a man makes you feel crazy for wanting the love you deserve, let him go(if only I used that advice for myself). It feels like people forget my thick skin still can still be wounded. I’m content with being alone most of days though.

The problem is, no matter how big or how strong your love is, it will never change how someone else loves. You cannot change someone else’s lifestyle or bad habits, if they aren't willing to change it themselves. There is truly only so much a person can take. Investing years into someone else’s life, also takes the focus away from your own. The best kind of love that I have learned is self-love. That’s a love no one can take away from you. Even though I was in a relationship, through out it all I learned self-love. If a man wasn't going to love me the way I deserved to be loved then I decided to give myself that love instead. So, I invested all my energy into my work and school.

There were endless nights I went through heavy hearts thinking, will things ever get better? Is this ever going to change? Hence, why I stayed so many years because I never stopped hoping that things could and would get better. I’ve lost plenty of friends but I’ve gained a hell of a lot of realizations. No matter how many times I’ve been hurt or betrayed, my love will always be there. I believe that with time our love will be a love solely from a distance.