Created: 2023-10-08 16:20
Edited: 2024-10-21 17:23
Status: 🌲evergreen

Love is something you do, not something you feel! [...] Love is hard work sometimes! There are people that to love them is so hard that it hurts your teeth — but if you grit those teeth and love them anyway, then the Prophets will do the rest.^[1]

Author: Fulton, Carolyn R.
Source: The Fire and the Rose
Links: =this.links

Lines in fanfiction can change your life.

This story made me truly believe that love is not just an emotions, it is an action, a choice. One that you have to make every single day, if you want to keep a relationship healthy. And not just when it comes to romantic love either.

Fire is often used as a metaphor for love, and I think it's a particularly apt one. Think about a fire in a fireplace. Yes, it needs a spark of something to get it started, but it won't catch unless you've stacked the logs and kindling just so. It needs a proper foundation in order to get started. And once it's burning it must be tended, or it will go out: stirring the embers, adding more fuel, banking it if you intend to leave it unattended over night.

And when it ends, you must clean out the ash and debris before you can start another fire.