I get giddy over the sappiest of happily-ever-afters. I get giggly over those perfectly timed and angled movie kisses. And I can't help but smile from ear to ear when I listen to the stories of how couples have met, and hear the progression of how they fell in love. It's times like those that I really do feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And some part of me hates myself for this-- "Oh, you're such a typical girl" my inner voice whispers, "every girl is a romantic, it's how you're raised." And I can't help but wonder.

Was it all those fairy tales I read and enjoyed? Or those Disney movies I watched? Was it all just the voice of society, of a world telling me that a happy ending always included a man? Part of me rejects this--even as a little one, my parents would laugh at me as I would cover my eyes during every movie kiss, because I had learned that my whole family had begun to stare and laugh at my beaming face whenever those moments appeared.

When I went through my childhood drawings in the basement as we prepared to move, they weren't of Disney princesses (mostly Lion King than anything else) they were of my mother and father, in love, either at their wedding or gazing at each other, hearts in their eyes. Even at that age, I knew I wanted that. And yes I know how privileged I am to say that my parents are still in love today.

Nature, nurture, I am a romantic at heart. Yet as a writer I began to pick apart the chick flicks I kept going to see, the romantic books I read that were on the shelves listed "popular." They all told the same story. I began to predict the entire movie, down to moments where my mother and friends were astonished that I knew how it would end. I mean, everyone knows how it ends--but even to the very scenes and conversations.

Every story had the same plot. And I was getting this eerie feeling that the women in the stories were not women I would look up to in real life. I started to feel bad. That I so enjoyed something that was often--even if subtly--sexist. Suddenly something that was a part of me I felt ashamed of, and I hid this part of me. I was strong, I was independent and I only indulged when there were more vocally romantic girls around me, when there was a room of girls watching it all, so I could blend in.

I think romantics are often misunderstood and oversimplified. My taste in movies has since developed, and among my absolute favorites are the trilogy Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight. Here, beautiful cinematography follows the encounter of a young American man and a young French woman on a train passing through France. The entirety of all the movie(s) consist of dialogue. The woman is an unapologetic dreamer whose thoughts on life and living is a part of what makes the spark between these two come alive.

In the first film, she says, "If there is any magic in the world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something." Instantly I knew. All this time I felt as though my love for romance had become cheapened over the years, as I thought I understood where it came from. But my love for it was in the magic of it--the very understanding that love is the closest thing to magic that we can get. It is magic's purest form, though the world has given magic other names.

So perhaps romantics are seen as holding fairy tales and happy endings up on a pedestal. But for me, it's the dreamer inside. The one who knows that Disney was right--magic does exist. And it's happening all around us. Us romantics, we just choose to bask in it. We choose to live in a world where love, can conquer just about anything. I am not alone in this. I think Martin Luther King Jr might have been a romantic, as he summarizes the essence of them perfectly here: "Hatred paralyzes life–– love releases it. Hatred confuses life–– love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life–– love illuminates it." To us, living a life of love is key.

But love doesn't just mean romance, love can be a kind word, a good deed. I think it's insane that the English language has only one word to describe "love," when it has so many forms! The Greeks had four major names for it: storge (family/affection), philia (friendship), eros (romantic) and agape (spiritual), and each form is certainly a kind of magic of its own.

See, I believe what it really comes down to in life, is that love is all that matters. Love, in all of its names. It's where the magic and purpose of living meet. In the "understanding of someone, sharing of something." So yes, I guess I am a romantic. But I guarantee it's not the kind you usually think of.