Read andreflect, consider, revisit, returnreflectconsiderrevisitreturn

Love can become difficult to see when we make it a goal to achieve. Trying to get love may begin from the belief that it is absent; trying to prove that we love can turn an experience into a performance.

The inquiry is what we have put between ourselves and what is already present. Some barriers call for responsibility: something unsaid, a hurt left unaddressed, or a demand that the other person supply our sense of worth. Removing a barrier does not manufacture love or require us to stay in a harmful relationship.

It may let us meet the relationship more honestly. Love is not secured by chasing the word. What is there becomes clearer when the struggle to possess it no longer occupies the whole space.