Peeps,
There comes a time in your own lives, your own relationships, where you reach a point of understanding you never thought possible. When a person falls in love, there's this ingrained idea that to love is to possess. I don't know if we learn this from our parents, or the media, or maybe it's just biologically there, but when we fall in love, there's this part of our brain that states, MINE. We want that person for ourselves. We want this person's time, this person's love, this person for us, and us alone.
I've come to recently realize that a relationship can pass through all the tests of time, can tumble along like a rock in a river, hard edged with this MINE mentallity, decorated with cracks of jealousy, and miscommunication, to tumble so hard against other rocks as to break and then finally reform, at the end of the river, smooth and humble, with a better understanding of self, and of love, the MINE mentallity gone. Sure you might still have a bump, or a scratch, memories of past mistakes, but you're better off with them.
When the MINE mentallity is gone, when you stop fearing the loss of the other person, you end up at a place that is merely accepting of whatever it is your relationship has arrived at. It's nice to be able to say, I love you, without demands, without needing it to be reciprocated, without thoughtlessness or jealousy, or any of the things that we expect of such a simple phrase, and to mean it, with everything you are, to truly mean, I love you, and just have it be that.
It feels like a better understanding of self, when you finally get to be able to say I love you, and just have it be, true to itself. I hope all of y'all get to reach this point one day.