It's beautiful and it's miserable..

Wearing: Boots and Top - H&M / Culottes - Mango / Cardigan - Polo

Relationships are about healing, are about a person who you feel so strongly attached to that you can’t help but face the types of growth moments that come up in a fight that rips you apart or during a moment so intimate you see yourself differently. You come up against your own beliefs about love and commitment and vulnerability and resolve and strength.

And a relationship, because of the intensity of feelings, presents to you your most raw and vulnerable. You get down to the heart of yourself. It’s not pretty. It’s not happy. It’s not bright and shiny. It’s not all morning sex and forehead kisses.

  It’s messy. 

And it’s painful. And it’s an identity crisis.

And it’s a mirror showing you every part of yourself you’re ashamed of, that you hate about yourself, that you wish you could hide away. It’s nakedness. It’s beautiful. And it’s miserable.

And it’s life. It’s life sped up and put right in front of your face. It’s your reflection and it forces you to choose the parts of yourself you want to keep, the parts you want to change, and the parts you need to discard so you can experience a deeper level of love with this person in front of you.

It’s not sunshine and rainbows and a constant euphoria. It’s not about breaking up because you’re no longer happy. A relationship ends when you’ve each served your purpose to each other, in terms of growth. You part ways when you’re meant to part ways, when there’s nothing more you can learn from each other, when you’ve, quite literally, grown out of each other.

And that’s what love is. Love is higher expressions of yourself. Love is expansion. Love is openness and vulnerability and rawness and nakedness. Love is facing your darkest parts of yourself. Love is being ashamed one day and liberated the next. Love is infrequently pure, unadulterated ecstasy and happiness.

And that’s okay. We’re here for more than just constant bliss. We’re here to, each day, shed layers of ourselves, be better versions of who we used to be, and to be strong and vulnerable, and to grow. 

-Jamie Varon-