Love is wanting you to exist.
Anxious People“Love is wanting you to exist.” is a sentence Estelle underlines near the beginning of a book she gives to her neighbor. Set against the much longer sentence he has marked in the book he gives her, it makes love a simple, direct wish for another person’s existence.
The Sentence in the Book
Estelle’s neighbor gives her a very thick book, written by a man, with one sentence underlined several hundred pages in: “We are asleep until we fall in love.” Estelle gives him a book in return, written by a woman. Near its beginning, she has marked: “Love is wanting you to exist.” The placement and brevity matter within the exchange: what the first book takes hundreds of pages to reach, Estelle’s chosen sentence states close to the start.
Exchange and Meaning
The sentence belongs to a reciprocal exchange of books between neighbors, not an abstract declaration detached from the scene. Each book carries a marked passage, so the two lines form a quiet correspondence between readers. The neighbor’s sentence presents love as an awakening; Estelle’s offers a more elemental definition, centered on the desire that another person continue to be. The novel gives this formulation physical presence through the underlined words in the book she hands over.
