I have a tendency to sit by windows and stare out at the world; I started doing this at a very young age. It gave me an opportunity to think about why things are the way they are and to sort through my feelings. I was in my first apartment for a few months, and the foot of my bed was against the bedroom window. When I woke up one morning, I looked out my window into the field behind the complex, which had a couple of old cars sitting around rusting. There was bunch of other junk piled back there and a fallen tree across the length of the field. On most occasions, I didn't see anyone back there, but on that morning, there was this old man kind of poking around looking at the cars. So, I watched him through the blinds and a few minutes later, an old woman came walking towards him. Well she got up to where the fallen tree was in the field and tried to step over. Unfortunately, she misjudged the distance and landed flat on her face. The old man was oblivious to all of this, until the woman started wailing. He rushed to her side as fast as his old body could carry him and picked her up. She was hysterical, but he stayed calm and brushed all the dirt off her clothes. She motioned to her face; he inspected her injuries, and then promptly hugged her until she was calm. Then they headed out of the field, hand in hand, I imagine toward home to get her cleaned up. I was very concerned for her and almost opened my window to ask if they needed help, but I am glad I didn't interfere, because they helped me learn an important lesson.
What I realized that day is that true love is not about giving your partner everything or fixing all their problems for them; it is about helping pick them up and dust them off when they need it most. I knew that what I wanted wasn’t a perfect person, but merely someone willing to love me enough to take that journey through life and only pick me up when it was truly necessary.
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