Love Is The Spark. Commitment Builds The Fire.

I used to think love was enough.

Love felt like magic. Like poetry. Like sacred recognition. It lit up my insides and made the world shimmer. And so I clung to it. When someone saw me—really saw me—I wanted to stay in that feeling forever. I mistook being seen for being held. I mistook effort for presence. I mistook chemistry for commitment.

Now I know better.

What loving him taught me wasn’t about the warmth of the spark, but the ache that followed when no structure held it. "Let’s talk," he said in our final goodbye. I said, "I’d like that." But he didn’t. We won’t. That’s what loving him taught me—not the words, but the gap between them and the follow-through. Love was there. But commitment wasn’t. And without commitment, love became longing in good lighting.

I used to follow breadcrumb trails, mistaking them for a map. I’d end up back at my own doorstep, aching, holding a gift no one asked for—my whole damn heart. I thought love would eventually teach someone how to stay. But now I see: love stirs something in us. Commitment builds something with us. One dazzles. The other steadies.

Love is the spark you feel when you rediscover yourself after a collapse. Commitment is showing up for yourself on mornings you don’t feel like it. Love is the excitement of a vision board. Commitment is the quiet return to your daily practice. Love is how you felt when your body began speaking to you again. Commitment is brushing your teeth, feeding yourself, taking a walk when you don’t want to, pausing before doomscrolling. To love and commit to yourself is to live in full awareness of your impermanence, your mood swings, your grief tides—and to stay, anyway. To wake up to yourself, again and again, in all your unfinishedness. Love writes the sonnets. Commitment signs the lease.

Even with myself, I had to learn this. It’s not the rush of inspiration that changes your life. It’s the sober, architectural decision to keep caring for yourself when the feeling fades. Self-love feels beautiful. But self-commitment is what changes you.

I have been loved. Deeply. Messily. Momentarily. But only occasionally have I been committed to. That’s the difference I feel now, in my bones. Longevity is not alignment. Time isn’t the same as truth. Familiarity isn’t care. And support isn’t a chore.

There’s a Scottish folk story I was told at the base of a Highland mountain, by a phenomenal guide named Graem. Graem! Sigh. Could you pick a better Scottish name? Nope! It’s about a boy and a girl who grew up in the same village, went to the same school, and were the best of friends. Every day, they’d climb the mountain near their homes, sharing stories about their day, their dreams, their hearts. The fairies of the mountain listened. They adored the friendship, the ritual, the love wrapped in simplicity.

The two children grew older, still climbing. Their friendship turned to love, and eventually they married, had children, built a life. Through all of it, they never stopped climbing that mountain together. The fairies watched with joy. But as the couple entered their autumn years, the climb grew harder. One day, they could no longer make the journey.

So the fairies came to their door. With a glimmer of mischief and magic, they offered the couple a potion to restore their strength. The couple drank, their limbs lit with youthful energy, and they began the climb once more. But when they reached the summit, something changed. Their bodies began to slow, then stiffen. They looked at each other, still holding hands, as their bodies turned to stone.

The fairies had gotten their wish: the stories would never stop. Their love would remain. And the couple? They got to spend eternity on the mountain of commitment—forever together, forever climbing.

I reached the top of that very mountain. The clouds parted, and the sun broke through in a way I had never seen before. With aching legs, a racing heart, I cried. Because that’s what it feels like when love and commitment meet. It doesn’t look like convenience. It looks like devotion. Like tradition. Like a choice made again and again, even when the climb is hard.

And now, I climb for myself.

Discernment is my structure. Self-respect is my scaffolding. I no longer climb back into the dark to prove I still care. I rise, quietly. And if someone reaches out for me, they will have to meet me where I am—not just where I was.

Because I’ve stopped confusing permanence with love. I’ve stopped calling it connection just because it stings familiar. I’ve stopped orbiting someone’s maybe, hoping it will settle into a yes.

I want more than inside jokes and sweet goodbyes. I want a life where love is held. Where love is built with. Where the offering is mutual and the shrine is shared. I want to be loved like I’m not a phase to pass through, but a place to stay.

And that starts with me.

Loving him didn’t make me crumble. It clarified my presence. It showed me the difference between being appreciated and being claimed. Between stirring someone and being held by them. Between chemistry and commitment. He made me feel seen. But he didn’t stay to witness.

He asked me for Nashville recommendations. I took it as an invitation to love out loud. I dove back into a city I had cherished, a place I had poured myself into, back when it was home. I walked through old neighborhoods, revisited favorite spots, and uncovered new ones with the same care I had once given to building a life there. In showing him that city, I was also trying to show him me. I was offering love in the form of presence, memory, possibility.

He barely went to any of them. Didn't have the time. Didn't make the time. Like most things we try and reduce to binaries, I’m sure it was a bit of both. He said he was sorry—and at the time, it felt genuine. But still: more empty air. More silence where structure could have been. More longing, backlit to resemble love and commitment. Now I know better.

Now I know better. Sparks alone can’t keep a fire going.

And ultimately, it was never about him. It was about my capacity to see the sacred in the small. My instinct to build something intentional. To show up with my whole self. To tend to a fire I built all on my own.

That offering doesn’t disappear just because it wasn’t received.

And now—I get to keep the skill of being a firebuilder.

Love is the thread we follow. But only commitment can weave it into a life.

I am not a souvenir. I am the myth and the mountain, the trail and the thunder. I am the scent that lingers when love walks home. And I no longer need to be remembered by someone who mistook my steadiness for scenery.