I’ve always known what love’s looked like.
Love is confident and assertive, yet kind-hearted and understanding. It is adventurous and spontaneous but also appreciative of the mundane found in between. But love, above all, is continuous. On the good days, the bad days, and every day in between, love is there.
That’s love. In a nutshell, you have met love.
I’ve only been in love once in my life. It was addictive and relentless. It still is, to some degree. But love was not what I thought it would be. It was slow burning and quiet. When it ended up at my doorstep, I didn’t know it was love, yet I welcomed it in, made space in my house, and thought I would be able to co-exist with what I had invited into the most intimate places I owned.
No one could have prepared me for the fact that love was going to move in and stain a part of my life that I could never wash out. There was no carpet cleaner strong enough to rid the floors of love once it bled. There were solutions to clean every other spill, but love could not be erased. It wanted residency— permanent residency.
When I was 14 years old, I wanted love the way it was portrayed in movies. I wanted to feel something I never had, spend time with someone who chose me over everyone else, and relish in the newness of my first, real relationship. I did not grow up watching an example of what love should be, so I cultivated its image by interpreting love as the opposite of what I’d personally seen.
Which is how I came to understand love. I watched my parents’ relationship and drew a picture of what I wanted love to look like. A love that didn’t look like what I’d seen— confident and understanding. Adventurous and comforting. All of which I previously stated.
As I’ve aged, people have informed me that the love you find in movies is not how love presents itself in real life. I have been told that time and time again.
But I really don’t understand why we rush the idea of falling in love to the youth. Why was I probed with questions of, “Owww, do you like him? Is that your little boyfriend?” when I was as young as 4-5 years old. Or asked, “Are there any cute boys in your class who you have a crush on?” when I was only in elementary school.
I know those were merely innocent questions asked by curious adults, but when you’re young, when you’re trying to figure out the world and everyone who inhabits it, the idea of falling in love shouldn’t even be addressed until we teach every child that the first person you should fall in love with is yourself.
I did not know at 14 years old that what I should have wanted more than love was me. I did not know that at 4 or 5 or 10 or even 18. At 14 years old, I should have learned who I was and what Taylor wanted before I entertained the idea of involving someone else. Because had I really known what love looked like, it would have been none of what I detailed earlier and only the reflection staring back at me.
A relationship can be beautiful and happy and the best thing that’s ever happened to you. It can be exactly how you manifested it to be or totally different from anything you thought you wanted. But the relationship you have with yourself is the foundation for everything else in your life, and that is the first and most vital relationship you should be in.
Because that’s how you’ll decide what you deserve and what you don’t.
That’s how you’ll decide what you’ll put up with and what you’ll walk away from.
That’s how you’ll decide if the person you’re with is compatible with you on a value level or just on the surface.
It will always come back to you.
So, why, do we even plant the seed of romantic love in the heads of the youth before we drive home the fact that love starts with you. That life and everything about it, for that matter, starts with you.
It’s obvious that I had to learn this lesson the hard way, as I know a lot of us have, but I will be sure to teach my kids that falling in love the way it’s portrayed in movies IS possible. That putting limits on how deeply and how passionately you can love has absolutely nothing to do with cinematic production and everything to do with how you learn to give it to yourself first.
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