In honor of #nationalgirlfriendday, I write about love. I am not the best at giving advice about love, I am an expert. Not only did Shakespeare give me a headache, but it also gave me the knowledge I needed to know about love. So anything I write about love, take my word for it…
I’m kidding. I am no expert but I have been there, done that, so like most people I know of love from experiences. Sixteen Candles, Love and Basketball, A Walk to Remember, Garden State and Brokeback Mountain are all movies that cast the same main character: love. Love pushes the movie along. Love isn't limited to movies, but it's in music, books, and it exists in the real world. The kind of love I am talking about is the kind of love most of us search for—that one person.
According to Greek mythology, “humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, and a head with two faces. Fearing the power, Zeus split them into two separate beings, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other half.” I guess from this point, you can fall into two categories: the still searching or the ones who have already found their other half. Don't worry, no matter where you are in these two categories I made up, you're going to experience and grow, no matter, the first, second or 100th love.
The one most of us experience is first love. It finds itself while we are still young and vulnerable to the world. Our minds are still learning, we are still making mistakes, finding ourselves, and discovering new people. First love is beautiful and magical because it is going to be the first time your heart and stomach get those weird feelings and you start to get nervous for no reason. First loves are trueloves, soulmates, the ones you're supposed to marry, right? ...wrong. Although, for the very first time you will feel all these amazing feelings, it will not be the last. The thing about love, is, a lot of people, including myself at one point, think that our first loves are the only and last kind of love we will ever experience. Yes, there are those who end up with their first loves but sometimes that does not work out for everyone and that is OKAY. You’ll learn this. Love is not limited to your first love.
Pictured above:
"i love you so much" graffiti art located in Austin, Texas
You’ll come across different kinds of love, and you’ll learn that every potential, every person you fall in love with is going to be different than the last. Maybe your first love bought you flowers, maybe your second love called you every night, but your third love does none of these things. You might sit there contemplating, is this what I want? But, pay attention - maybe this new love of yours shows their love in a different way, a way you you haven't experienced or noticed because you're too busy comparing. Stop comparing. You’ll learn this. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Heck, you might even go through heartbreak. It’s going to suck at first but it only makes you stronger. You'll learn this. This is all part of love teaching you. It is never the end of the world when a break-up happens, sometimes it's only the beginning to a new start. Sometimes that new start is someone else later coming into your life and if that happens and this person has you thinking, “this can't be happening to me, this person is just not real”, "they're too good for me" "I am not used to this..." Most likely they are real. Hold onto them and treat every relationship with respect if that respect is also being given to you. There is so much to learn about love. Whether you're falling in love the first time or the 100th time, every experience is one to learn from. Learn from it, grow with it, and in time, if not already, you’ll come across your other half.
