It looks reckless from the outside, I know.
Like stepping out of a plane at altitude—arms open, ground far below, air rushing so loud it erases second thoughts. Once I step, I step completely. I do not hedge. I do not half-fall. I invite whatever comes next with my whole body.
But what people don’t see is how long I stand at the door before that moment.
I do not love indiscriminately.
I do not tumble toward just anyone.
Before the fall, there is precision.
There are tests that are never announced.
Trials that happen quietly, without spectacle or threat. I watch how someone handles care when it costs them nothing. How they respond to boundaries when desire presses against them. How they hold power when they have it—and how they behave when they don’t.
I listen for consistency.
For restraint.
For the ability to stay.
Only then—only after something in me is convinced that this person understands gravity—do I choose.
And when I choose, it is irrevocable in a particular way.
A place is etched.
Not possession.
Not expectation.
Not obligation.
An internal architecture forms—a chamber in my soul that belongs to them alone. It doesn’t demand permanence, but it does not erase easily. It is made carefully, the way one carves stone knowing it will outlast the moment of creation.
That is the part no one prepares for.
Because every single time I have loved this way, they have eventually walked away.
Not always cruelly.
Not always dramatically.
Sometimes gently.
Sometimes confused.
Sometimes because they reached the edge of what they could receive and chose retreat over depth.
The reasons vary.
The outcome does not.
And still—I do not revoke what I gave.
I accept all of them, even after they leave. Not in action, not in pursuit, but in truth. I do not rewrite the connection into something smaller to protect myself. I do not sour it with bitterness so it hurts less. I let it remain what it was: chosen, real, and complete within its span.
That is the risk I knowingly take when I step out of the plane.
The chute may open.
It may not.
I don’t love for safety.
I love for alignment.
For recognition.
For the rare resonance that tells my nervous system: this person can touch me without distorting me.
And yes—there is fear.
Not of falling.
Of surviving the fall again and again while still remaining willing to board the next plane.
Of knowing that my capacity to love does not diminish, but my history insists on reminding me how often it ends with me standing alone, holding something that was once shared.
Still, I choose it.
Because withholding my love would cost me more than being left ever has.
Because precision without courage would hollow me out.
Because the act of choosing—fully, deliberately, without guarantees—is the truest expression of who I am.
If loving this way means I carry the ache of endings, then I will carry it.
But I will not cheapen the fall.
I will not pretend it was casual.
I will not apologize for the depth of my yes.
I step out of the plane knowing exactly what I am doing.
And every time, I choose to love anyway.