When I was around six years old, I accidentally told the mail lady I loved her. Being the normally shy child that I was, I considered this the worst thing to happen in my life, by far.

I had been walking across the street to spend time with my grandparents and had stopped to say hi to her when she was putting letters into a community mailbox on the corner. I hadn’t meant to tack on the “I love you” onto the end of my goodbye, but by habit, it just slipped right out.

So of course, I did the only thing I considered acceptable. I walked right into my grandparents’ house and pretended the whole thing didn’t happen. It’s not like I could tell her I didn’t love her, right? Everyone deserves love.

At six years old you’re usually pretty laid back about love. Love comes easy when you’re a kid. You know it’s a good thing and you want to spread it around. Someone buys you ice cream and you love them. Your parents tuck you in every night, complete with a kiss on the forehead and you love them. Your friend tells you your shoes look cool and you love them, too. Why does love change when we get older?

The older you get the more serious you realize love is. The more standards you stick onto it. When you’re fifteen and your crush tells you your hair looks nice that day, you’re sure you’re in love. An hour later you hear them telling someone else their hair looks nice, and your poor fifteen-year-old heart is filled with rage. Your parents ground you for staying out past curfew and you deem them overbearing and consider their love suffocating. Your best friend says something mean to you and you never talk to each other again. You realize you’re not the love spreading kid you used to be.

But that love still exists inside you, of course. You can’t just get rid of it. You still blush when you see your crush walk past you in the halls. You still tell your parents you love them before you leave for school, and you know you mean it. Every time you see an old friend purposely ignore you your heart breaks a little bit more. At some point in our lives, we realize love can hurt us. That it hurts because it’s love.

And yet love still changes. You’ll realize you don’t have to be so stingy with your love. You’ll love your friends even though they make you angry sometimes, and you’ll love your parents even after you argue. Someday you’ll meet someone you love so much you feel it overwhelm you every time they step into the room. Love will still hurt, but you’ll know it’s worth it. You have to know the rules to be able to break them.

In our lifetimes, the love inside us will be stretched thin, burned out, and ripped apart. The people we love will tell us hurtful things, break our hearts, and maybe even leave us. We will feel our love shrink back and grow small. It is an unfortunate fact of life. Love can kill.

But love can create life as well. No matter the hurt inside us, we will always love again. The elasticity of love knows no bounds. So when you’re hurt by the ones you love, just know that you’re going to bounce back. That love still exists inside you, you’ve just got to give it time to grow again.