Love

Ever. But after walking through the center of black holes, feeling my mind and body seared and torn asunder, only to be put back together by the same forces that destroyed them, but not quite the same, and after having done this an infinitude of repetitions and stretched out through an excruciating eternity, never to end the cycle, I've finally found what love is.

I've known many people, spoken with them, and remember almost none of them. Some are still here. And even after 25 years, suddenly some aren't. But that's not love.

Love is choice. It's chosing to accept another person, as they are. It's chosing to help that person become great, even if it means being less important. It means that a choice has been made, consciously, and with full awareness, and with an understanding of the consequences, to make the well-being of the people you have chosen to love more important to you, and reminding them that they are at least as great as their successes, and that their failures don't matter.

And if you are in love, and it is true, and you would spend the rest of your life with those you are in love with, you will be there through everything good, and everything bad, and all the years of boredom, and tears, and relationships that aren't yours, and none of it will matter, especially the pain.