The love we get sold on screen is always a fairytale. There’s an initial connection that neither party can resist, which leads to conversations lasting hours, and usually some form of physical intimacy. Then the days that follow are just filled with enjoyment and laughter and wanting to be with each other every waking moment. You can’t concentrate on your work because all you want is to be with them, or to at least think about them. It’s all-consuming, fuzzy, exciting. And you’re sure this is it, they are the one, this is endgame.

That part isn’t love though. It could be infatuation or limerence. It could be a fascination of something shiny and new. It’s attraction in its rawest form. But that’s not love. Love is what comes after. In the quiet, the mundane, the daily slog. And, as I discovered in recent years, love is in the inconvenience.

I guess I knew it when I was younger but did not have the emotional intelligence to recognize it. When Tahiti 80 came here for a concert back in 2011, my then-boyfriend-now-husband Niki really wanted to go. I knew he had loved them since forever and I really wanted to surprise him with tickets. However, I was a broke 20-something so I had to get creative. Thankfully, I knew the producer of the event and I asked if I could work as a production assistant for the day in exchange for a ticket. So I worked on backstage things and got Niki on the list, and when I saw the look on his face as he watched one of his favorite bands, I knew it was worth it. Their lead vocalist, Xavier Boyer, threw a towel into the crowd—straight into Niki’s hands. That towel is sitting somewhere in the depths of our closet today. It may not hold the same value as it did that night, but the memory always will. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now: love is inconvenient. It makes you do things you probably wouldn’t have chosen to do, but for the happiness of someone you love, you’ll find ways.

It took a more serious form last year, when Niki got cancer. For a few months, I had to disappear as a person so that I could take care of him and my family. But it wasn’t in a way that I resented. We needed to walk through this tunnel together, hand-in-hand, to get through to the other side intact. I think I unclenched neither jaw nor butt in those months of tests, appointments, treatments, and adjustments. It was inconvenient, yes, but it was necessary and I did it with my whole chest. I needed no accolades or recognition or applause. I was just glad I could be on the journey with him. After the operation, I joked that it was the trial that made me realize I would follow him to the ends of the earth. I guess I really do love you, huh? I said to him one night on the couch, as we watched TV. Him sans one thyroid, me with a new perspective gained: Love is inconvenient and it doesn’t expect anything in return.

Whether it’s romantic, familial, platonic— you have to let love get in the way of things sometimes. Because it’s the fuel for the machine, the water for its roots, the sunshine for bleak days. It’s the only way we stretch our capability to love others. Without getting inconvenienced, we’ll be in our tiny little corner, like a goblin counting favors, always expecting to get back what we’ve given.

If you want to learn to love better, step out of what’s comfortable. Do something that requires you to carve out time, hone a skill, or use up some resources. I know the world today keeps on emphasizing boundaries, and self-love, and protecting your peace, and whatever therapy-speak is part of the new buzzword salad. All of those things are necessary, yes, to some degree. Of course you have to know how to protect yourself, not everyone will be kind, or will reciprocate our love. But the words that teach us to protect ourselves are also the same things that isolate us. If we’re not careful, we’ll get so good at boundaries that we end up with all this empty space around us, and nothing to fill it with.

Personally, I prefer the 1 Corinthians 13 way: “⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” It’s true, you get hurt a lot more this way, and yes, you’ll definitely be disappointed. But if you want to know what it means, really means to love, this is a pretty comprehensive list. It’s basically every inconvenient thing in the world. And it’s exactly what we need.