I believe in true love. And for this, I am unashamed.
Believe in true love. Believe in romance and fairytales. Dream your heart away.
I have been told more than a handful of times how much of a romantic I am- how I turn little glances from people into gazes of love, and expect my everyday life to be a fairytale. If a person opens a door for me or merely mentions how pretty my eyes are, I find it difficult to not fall a little in “like” with them. I refuse to apologize for having high standards; as should you. If you’re a romantic, you understand. You dream of John Cusack holding a boom-box and blasting Phil Collins; you wish for flowers and love letters and good morning phone calls. And as I am slowly learning, this, you should not run from. It is not a crime to fall in love with the world.
If you grew up looking onward at a couple even remotely similar to my parents, you’d believe in true love too.
For the longest time, I did not know exactly why I was such a romantic at heart, but then I realized that it wasn’t strictly because of Disney movies or because I had my head in a book for at least 20 hours out of the day. My role models- my mother and father- have been the two people I have always looked up to (and not just because they are taller than I am). I relied on them growing up, and because they truly are the ideal couple, I expected everyone in the world to love like the love that they show for one another. It was not the fictitious couples in movies and television to influence me, it was these two.
It may have taken me a while to recognize this, but being a romantic is not a flaw. Desiring something that you feel you deserve is not wrong. It is not unrealistic to want a fairytale romance, because I have witnessed it firsthand. I have witnessed it from my best friend who is now happily married and survived her soul-mate’s long deployment at sea. Romance glowed bright within my grandparents on both sides of the family, marriages lasting longer than a lifetime. I have seen this unconditional love within the eyes of my parents, seeing the same love from pictures when they first got married and in pictures of them in the present. Love is not insanity, love is real and I believe everlasting. So no, I will not stop believing in true love. And I do not believe it is such an impossibility to wish for. I have learned from the best that the greatest love stories are the ones that are not on screens, (although Nicholas Sparks would certainly pay for the movie rights of these stories).
I have experienced heartache, but this will not make me cynical. Do not let one experience stop your heart from pursuing romance. Because of this, I will reiterate again: it is not a crime to believe in true love. And when we find it, we will be so grateful we believed. There is only warmth to gain from being a romantic.
