Love-struck
“What is love, after all?”, this mademoiselle wonders.
It certainly seems to be in the air, much like the common cold, but is it as easy to catch? It’s a question asked by many, answered by few and yet understood by none. What might one encounter, as one embarks on a quest to find love? Let’s explore.
The first step in the journey towards love, I hear, is admiration. A quiet sense of appreciation, a feeling of joy and pride that sweeps over you while watching someone you love, do the most mundane of tasks; much like a parent watching their baby’s first steps.
The second, as I’ve come to believe, is connection: the excitement you feel when talking to them, while secretly dreading having to end the conversation at some point. Thinking about them every time you hear something funny or interesting. The anxiety caused by the inability to wait until telling them, and the exhilarating feeling once you do. In some ways love is both a sickness and a cure.
Lastly, attraction I hear is the final piece of the puzzle. Attraction is irrational enough to not have a satisfying definition. It’s the palpable tension in the air surrounding you both, the electrical pulses radiating through your body when hands brush together. As Anthony Bridgerton so eloquently put it, it’s when someone is the bane of your existence, yet the object of all your desires.
There you have it, folks. All great love stories are a potpourri of the above ingredients: admiration, connection and attraction. But what if your relationship does not have some or any of the above? Is it doomed to fail?
No, not until you have the arrow of forgiveness left in your quiver.
You see forgiveness, is the child of love and acceptance. As long as you can find it in your heart to forgive someone for being imperfect, for not being their best possible self all the time, you already are in love with them. Not madly or crazily in love, but calmly, patiently and strongly in love.
Despite popular belief, I’ve come to realize that the best relationships are not the ones in which you “fall” in love, but the ones where you feel uplifted in love, safe in love, and free in love. So, if you just caught feelings for someone and you’re down with love, don’t worry, cuz…
