There’s a lot of things we have to settle for in this life- a crappy job, a less than perfect apartment, poor coffee on the morning commute. The list is endless because settling is unavoidable most of the time; we have to give up on the idealized version of what we really want because so many things are out of our control.

But love? Love is the one great thing that absolutely anyone can experience, no matter how poor or rich you are, no matter how much of a success you deem yourself, no matter your background or how attractive you believe yourself to be.

We all get a shot at love, no one is immune. So why settle for something mediocre?

Love should feel like flying, like dancing barefoot in a downpour without a care in the world, it should feel like hot chocolate after walking home in a snowstorm, it should be that feeling of returning home.

Of absolutely certainty, security and contentment.

You should be with someone who will buy you candy on the way home from work because they know you’ve had a rough day and stress eating chocolate soothes you. Someone who will try to understand the complicated drama you’re having with your friends without slating you or your friendship, someone who gets that you will bicker with your person but it doesn’t mean you don’t love them. Someone who will always make you feel like the center of their world, who will put you and your needs first. Someone who will make you feel beautiful, even when you’re sick with flu and haven’t showered in days. Someone who will remind you every single day of your worth, who will not feel intimidated by your successes, who will take every opportunity to praise you and make you feel like a queen.

You deserve the kind of love that doesn’t walk away from fights, a love that will lay awake with you until sunrise trying to fix whatever got a little broken. You deserve someone who will never see an argument as him vs. you, but both of you vs. the problem, someone who doesn’t use your past mistakes in the present, someone whose only desire is to be moving forward, always. Someone who sees the challenges you may face as simply ways to discover more about each other and grow. You deserve someone who makes you feel as if you are worth every problem you might face because even the most magical of relationships can be rocky at times.

You deserve the kind of love that is written about, that movies are made about. The kind of person who pulls you up off the couch when your face twists in that way which tells him you are struggling with your anxiety or your sadness, who will pull you into your arms and dance with you, even when no music is playing. Someone who will throw you over their shoulder and run into the ocean with you because you’re too afraid to chase the waves by yourself because the big and the open overwhelms you.

You deserve the kind of love that does not build fences around your heart but pulls them down. The kind of love that makes you feel as if you can do anything, be anyone, have whatever you want. The kind of love that will cherish your differences, that will celebrate your flaws, that will feel challenged and excited by you.

You deserve the kind of love that makes it okay for everything else in your world to be a little off balance, a little plain, a little mediocre. The kind of love that will keep you steady when you feel as if everything is falling apart. You deserve the kind of love that keeps you grounded when you’re having a bad day. The kind of love you can rely on when you feel as if everything else is uncertain.

It does not need to be trips to Paris or big rocks on your fourth finger, it does not need to be extravagant material things, it does not need to be Instagram worthy.

It just needs to feel like magic in your heart, it needs to make you feel like you have a secret which no one else knows about. It needs to make you feel invincible. It needs to be extraordinary simply in the way your head spins and your heart flutters, in how you feel absolute calm throughout your entire body.

And if it doesn’t…

You need to walk away.