Building With the Bricks We Carry

I’ve always been drawn to houses—not the glossy, perfect ones in magazines, but the lived-in kind. The ones with creaky floors, paint peeling at the corners, walls that whisper the history of laughter, arguments, and quiet nights. Relationships are exactly like that. They aren’t built overnight. They aren’t built from perfection. They’re built from bricks—some smooth, some cracked, some heavy, some jagged, and some unexpectedly beautiful.

Some of the bricks we carry are handed down to us—lessons, fears, and habits from our families, sometimes unnoticed until they press against us. Some we collect along the way—heartbreaks, mistakes, regrets, dreams that never quite materialized. Some bricks are light, easy to hold. Others weigh so much it feels like they could break your back. And yet, they are all we have.

When I first brought my bricks to love, I wanted only the perfect ones. I wanted everything to fit seamlessly. I wanted a relationship without cracks. But love doesn’t work that way. Real love asks us to look at the broken, the jagged, the heavy—and say, “We can build with this.”

Early in my relationship, we laid our bricks side by side. I brought my fears; they brought theirs. I brought my old wounds; they brought theirs. At first, the weight felt unbearable. The cracks seemed too wide to bridge. But slowly, we began to sort them. The laughter in the gaps became mortar. Quiet touches, shared cups of coffee on rainy mornings, and late-night conversations became beams. The moments of saying “I see you” when the world seemed cold became the roof that kept us safe.

Some nights, the house shook under storms—arguments, miscommunications, past pain—but the walls held. The cracks were there, yes, but they glinted with resilience, catching the light in unexpected ways. We began to see the beauty in the jagged edges. We began to understand that the broken pieces weren’t weaknesses—they were the foundation.

A house built from broken bricks is alive. It smells of old coffee, laughter, and sometimes tears. It feels warm and unpredictable. Its walls tell stories, not of perfection, but of endurance. Every scar, every heavy brick, every patch is a testament to courage—the courage to keep building, to keep showing up, to keep choosing each other.

I’ve learned that love isn’t about finding someone who fits perfectly into your life. It’s about embracing the jagged edges—yours and theirs—and building something stronger together. Brick by brick, crack by crack, we craft a home that is uniquely ours.

A house built from broken bricks isn’t fragile. It is resilient. It is human. It is enduring. And in that imperfection, love shines brighter than any polished, picture-perfect version ever could.

We don’t get perfect love. We get love worth building. And that, in the end, is more than enough.