25,228,800 Breaths of Love
Love isn’t something you plan. It happens in the spaces between a word and a glance, in the way someone leans in slightly when listening, in the warmth of a voice that lingers a second longer than necessary. You love for the scent, for the mystery, for the quiet sense of home someone carries—or for the chaos they bring. You love without knowing why, without asking for permission, and sometimes, without a way back.
And then there’s breathing. No one really talks about how love changes the way we breathe. How, without noticing, your breath slows when theirs does, how two rhythms, once separate, begin to move as one. It isn’t something you decide—it just happens, like a silent agreement written in the body. Hearts align. Lungs adjust. Love, in its simplest form, is the ability to exhale without fear.
Clarice Lispector, one of the most celebrated Brazilian writers of the 20th century and one of my personal favorites, once wrote that true love is found in the sum of misunderstandings. And perhaps she was right. Love isn’t about finding someone who fits perfectly—it’s about learning to exist beside someone who will never be entirely yours. It’s about accepting that some questions will never have answers and loving anyway.
It isn’t always easy. Some days, love feels light, effortless, as if it had always been there. Other days, it is something you carry, heavy and uncertain, shifting with every step. Sometimes it’s a place to rest; sometimes it’s a door that won’t close. It can last a lifetime or just a handful of stolen moments, but either way, it changes everything.
Vinicius de Moraes, a Brazilian poet and songwriter who helped shape the sound of Bossa Nova, captured this beautifully in his Sonnet of Fidelity:
“I want it to be eternal while it lasts,
To be deep while it endures,
To be infinite in surrender,
To be pure while alive.”
And maybe that’s all we need to know. Not how to keep it, not how to name it—just how to let it fill the space between one breath and the next, before the wind changes.