love.

The perfect marriage, never-ending love, the desire that never dims, a forever. These are lucky eventualites but they aren't love stories. Real love stories depend on relationship flaws, heartbreak and disappointment. We value love not because it's stronger than death but because it's weaker. Say what you want about love, but death will finish it. You will not go on loving in the grave, regardless of whether or not an ideal after-life awaits us. There may still be love --I hope so, atleast-- but after death, we will not experience love in a physical way that resembles love as we know it on earth. The perishable nature of love is what gives love its importance in our lives. If it were endless, love would be nothing. We avoid reality by allowing ourselves to live in this fantasy of ''forever'', convincing ourselves that each of our relationships will beat the odds, that we're the lucky couple where that desire will never dim and where our love is uniquely invincible. But this fantasy and this precious lost sight of reality is what makes it beautiful. It makes heartbreak worth enduring, makes love worth living and life worth loving. Much like life, love is an hourglass; inevitably the sand will run out. Because of this, love is everything.