Love. It's one word that is often thrown around in many contexts, whether it be that I love my significant other, or that I love this amazing slice of pizza from Giordano's. What this word means to me, however, is my whole life. Love is one word, and it's so complex for me to describe in such a limited space what it means to my life, but I can do my best at a summarization. Love is the unyielding kindness for people other than yourself, strangers or friends. Love is the power to be able to stand up and be confident in, respect, celebrate, and accept yourself for who you are. Love is holding the door for a stranger on move in day at college. Love is sacrificing for someone, whether it be money, time, or energy.

For me, all these things have been prevalent in my life, and have come to be increasingly important in the hardships I've faced. Starting high school right after my father moved to Florida was hard, and for a long time it was hard to love. Love others as fully as I should, and to love myself. When the college decisions I had to make came at me and weighed me down like I was carrying a boulder on my back, it became hard to love the world around me that had helped me get to the option of college. The thing that kept me going through all of this was the thing I thought was absent the whole time: love. Love did many of the things for me that I listed in the first paragraph. It gave me moments big and small, with varying degrees of longterm significance by themselves. When compiled into one group, all these small things helped me realize what I want for my life. I want to give all the time, money and energy I can to people, especially those people that I know and, well, love. I wanted desperately to love myself and fully accept myself for who I was, and quit with the self-deprecating humor that masked the pain I was hiding. I want to accept every person for who they are, celebrate everyone for who they are, respect everyone for who they are, and show compassion to people for who they are. Love can hurt, and often does as the song "Love Hurts" suggests. Wanting the best for someone no matter how it happens is often hard to do, but loving that person for who they are means to let them go sometimes. The more powerful thing about love is that it gives people, including me, a reason to live. It gives people something to wake up to. To go to bed to. To give to others. So give as much of it as you can. Live, play, grow, laugh, and most importantly love one another.