Let’s talk about love.
It’s a topic that every human on the planet knows to varying extents. Some know love as the ultimate form of euphoria and gaze admiringly at the prospect of being in love. To others, love is a distant friend; one they haven’t seen or felt in years but express optimism in encountering again. And still, to others, love is no friend at all. Love has wronged them without remorse in too many ways. Love cannot be trusted nor can it be invited into the heart again for fear of the destruction that may follow.
I pride myself in writing about what I’ve experienced. I do not believe that you can speak on something that you haven’t lived through yourself. It’s like saying a tattoo hurts without ever experiencing the pressure of the needle. With this in mind, I have decided to speak on love the only way I know how and that is through the lens of my experience.
It’s worth saying that my experience with love stretches only 22 years and my experience with being in love is even more limited. Undoubtedly, my viewpoint will shift when I revisit this subject at 27, 32, or 65 years old. However, today, my perspective is that of a 22 year old young adult with limited experiences in both life and love.
When I hear the word “love”, I think of my best friends, my family, my dogs. Love for my coworkers, love for myself, and love from my Creator. When I hear the phase “in love”, completely different emotions emerge. One memory, in particular, takes root. This thought isn’t especially pretty nor is it at all reminiscent of a Hallmark movie. Being in love is complex and abstract. It takes effort and understanding and two people that choose to show up well in their relationship every single day.
My first experience with being in love came at the ripe old age of 16 years old. Like many teens, I was a little baby bunny– barely old enough to legally operate a motor vehicle. I had no idea who I was, what I stood for, or who I wanted to be. And with this framework directing my decisions, I had no idea where I was headed. I was easily swayed by the opinions and beliefs that others carried and rarely gave a second thought to what my viewpoint was apart from theirs.
| “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” – Zig Ziglar |
At the start of my sophomore year of high school, a boy I had never seen before walked into my Honors English class. I distinctly recall the long-sleeved, maroon Ralph Lauren sweater he wore. I remember thinking how well dressed he appeared in comparison to the majority of students that wore sweatpants and over-sized t-shirts to class. In addition to the maroon sweater, he had on khakis and a nice pair of loafers. Loafers? To class? A dream.
Conveniently, there was an empty desk in the row next to me. The boy made his way to the vacant seat and I sat contemplating what he was doing here. It didn’t take long for me to introduce myself. I quickly learned that he had just moved to the area and this was his first day at our high school.
As you can predict, that boy and I fell in love. It began like every other good love story. We started off as friends that shared inside jokes and flirted while pretending like no one noticed. I played hard-to-get and acted like I wasn’t interested. He accepted his role as friend and patiently waited for the tides to change.
Since this isn’t a novel or even a short story, the details of our relationship are irrelevant. We were in love. Fear was no longer a part of our vocabularies. Absolutely anything was possible. Our world stretched no wider than the circle we drew around ourselves.
I look back fondly on this state of in love. It was unrealistic and all-consuming and totally magical. We were madly, ridiculously, and unapologetically in love. Anyone that has experienced this state of euphoria attributes a whole new meaning to John Legend’s melody, ” Give your all to me, I’ll give my all to you”. You do. You give your all and you don’t look back because being in love is whimsical and juvenile and so stinkin’ amazing.
Until it’s not.
That boy and I were in love for just over two years. When the strength of our love failed, its effects were catastrophic. The world had been drained of its color. It felt like a blindfold had been permanently placed over my eyelids and darkness consumed my thoughts. Nothing was magical and everything lacked amazement. I struggled to find the motivation to do anything beyond my daily routine. My face grew puffy and my nose red from the extensive sob sessions that commenced after returning from work or school each day.
If you’ve experienced heartbreak, you’re familiar with the effects it has on the way you see the world and the attitude you attribute to love moving forward. Falling out of love was devastating and spanned far beyond the initial weeks following the break-up. During this difficult season, I learned a very real, very scary truth.
| Worse than losing a love is losing yourself. |
And that’s what had happened. Without even knowing it, I had slowly taken the pieces of me that were most unique and traded them for fragments that fit our story better. I stopped imagining my dreams and focused solely on his. I invested less time into my friends and family and more energy into being by his side. He never asked me to do any of these things. I did them willingly. I did them blindly. I knew no shame.
It has taken years to undo what I had taught myself to believe about being in love. It is still something I struggle with often– what love is and perhaps, more profoundly, what love is not.
| “It takes years as a woman to unlearn what you have been taught to be sorry for.” |
– Amy Poehler
Although a distant memory now, I remember this season of life very well. It was so painful and I felt certain that the darkness would never fully cease. That is, however, the beauty of time. Time has a way of healing even the deepest of wounds.
Today, I am grateful for the boy in the maroon sweater. It is because of him that I experienced one of life’s most precious encounters. Although I would never wish heartbreak of this caliber on anyone, it is a phenomenal teacher. You must confront the not-so-pretty-truths that you have grown to believe about yourself. You must apologize to those that you’ve hurt as you walked blindly in love. And most importantly, you must reflect so that if life is so willing as to bless you with such an experience again, you can go forward wiser, stronger, and better equipped to see the situation as it is, for what it is.
| I hope you’ll get out of the trees long enough to see the forest for what it is. |
– Rachel Hollis
Daily Dose of Goodness 