Love is often found in the places we aren't looking. It lives in the deepest parts of your soul, where longing quietly lingers. That is where you'll discover the purest kind of love the kind you'll cherish and protect because you know it came from you the source of everything you've always needed.

When love begins within, it changes how you experience the world. The love you receive from others is no longer something you believe you're entitled to simply because you exist. Instead, it becomes something that complements the love you've already cultivated for yourself. It doesn't complete you, it complements the standard you've already set. It adds to your life rather than filling a void.

Lately, it feels as though there's a growing desire to withdraw from the world in search of peace. While solitude is a beautiful teacher, it cannot offer everything. Solitude teaches self-preservation, self-love, and self-acknowledgement. It allows you to hear your own voice without the noise of the world. But solitude alone cannot teach understanding, connection, or fellowship. Those lessons are found in the presence of others.

The beauty lies in bringing what you've learned in solitude back into community. You begin to meet people who have also learned to love themselves, people whose love flows from abundance rather than lack. Relationships become an exchange instead of an escape. Love is no longer about being saved, it's about sharing.

So don't allow romance to look a certain way just because the world tells you it should. Let romance become whatever feels honest to you. Let it be slow or adventurous, loud or quiet, ordinary or extraordinary. Let it be rooted in peace rather than performance, in choice rather than expectation.