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Sometimes we judge people by how quickly they move on after a relationship ends.

We wonder how someone can say they loved a person, shared a life with them, and still continue forward. We question if the love was real simply because it didn’t last the way we expected it to.

But, hear me out.

I don’t think love was ever meant to be measured by how long someone stays broken.

I don’t think we prove love by who hurts the longest, waits forever, or never loves again.

Maybe we get it wrong because we expect love to look the same every time.

But it doesn’t.

We love people differently.

Not more.

Not less.

Differently.

Every person reaches parts of us someone else never could.

Some teach us healing.

Some teach us boundaries.

Some awaken growth.

Some show us versions of ourselves we never would have met without them.

That doesn’t make one love greater than another.

It makes it unique.

Love can be real and still end.

It can change you and still not be forever.

And moving on isn’t always proof that someone cared less. Sometimes it means they carried the lesson and kept becoming.

But despite all of that…

I still believe in “the love.”

Not the one chosen because society says it’s time.

Not because we fear being alone.

I believe that eventually we find the love that holds what we need while leaving room to grow.

The kind that doesn’t ask us to stop growing.

And we don’t choose it because we have to.

We choose it because we want to.

Because after every lesson, every heartbreak, and every version of ourselves discovered through loving others, maybe there comes someone who feels less like a lesson and more like a choice.

Not because they complete us.

Not because they save us.

But because we look at them and think:

“I could do this life alone, but I would much rather do it with you.”

Maybe that’s what lasting love is.

Not obligation.

Not Expectation .

Just two people, fully capable of leaving, choosing each other anyway.

~

Did you enjoy this? Check out Lillian’s previous article on Elephant: