I've seen a lot of love the last few days around the cities of Italia. I've seen it in the old couples drinking espressos with their tea. I've seen teenagers hanging around each other like necklaces. I've seen fathers carrying their kids' backpacks, and I've seen the love of a dog for their human. It's been really beautiful to watch these couples around me. It's also made me miss the people I love, my family, my boyfriend, my friends, and of course, my dog, but as Italy does, it only makes you love those people more. I got the chance to see love letters in Verona that people wrote to Juliet about their loved ones. Sometimes about love itself. Other times about love of oneself. Often times asking for advice on their love.

I've always been a sucker for love letters. That's because maybe I've always been a sucker for love. But love is hard and I love that a community can get together to help each other feel less lost. The way the letter system works is that someone drops a letter off in one of the boxes around the city of Verona, tucks a letter to the Juliet wall, or one mails a letter to the Club dei Guilette in Verona where a group of volunteers reads the letters and then responds as if they were Juliet. The volunteer then puts the letter in a box to be scanned and saved in the archives. Now if you've seen, "Letters to Juliet" with Amanda Seyfried, then you know how this works and if you haven't, go watch it. It's a really cute romantic comedy (I'm also a sucker for those).

They allow any volunteers to come and respond any time they are open. I was lucky enough to catch them and was able to read the letters from people around the world who wanted to tell Juliet their story or ask Juliet for advice. The experience drew me back to my first love who was already on my mind since a loved one of his recently died, and my current love who is always on my mind. I won't disclose exactly what these letters I responded to said, but they were all-encompassing and very lovely, and also hard to read because I could so closely feel connected to their stories. They could be so similar to what I'd gone through. It was so hard to respond without a serious bias on their relationships.

Oftentimes I found myself back in my high school boyfriend's house with him as he tended to his steers and I tried to learn what I could about them. I'd say it was a first love because I'd never felt like I did with him. I thought it would last forever and I think he did, too, until I went away to college. It was the first love and as all-consuming and beautiful as it was, it ended. We became different people and that's not a bad thing. We're both really happy now being friends and better off for it. But the girl who wrote me about her first love put me in a place I hadn't been in a long time. And I wish I could thank her for it. Instead I told her, as Juliet would, how beautiful first loves are and how devouring they can be. I told her I was rooting for her and her partner, however if things didn't work out, as high school relationships sometimes don't, she would find love again. Maybe in a partner, but I really hope she falls in love with herself.

I fell in love with myself finally, and I even fell in love with someone else again, too. In the process of dating and not dating, I learned so much about myself and who I wanted to be. I learned to love myself and that was the greatest love I've had. Don't get me wrong, I love my boyfriend. He's great and amazing and so supportive of everything I do. But I don't know how real our love might be if I hadn't learned how to love myself first.

I hope those letters keep getting answered. And I hope that girl finds my (or Juliet's) advice to be really helpful. Maybe she will, maybe she won't, but it was so healing to think about all the love I've given and all the love I've given to myself and others over this small span of twenty one years. It was really lovely to be tucked away in Juliet's Club in a small hidden building in Verona. I stumbled upon that little writing room almost like others stumble upon love.

Write to Juliet for some advice. The women who volunteer there are really lovely and have great advice to give.