Love man, that's the good stuff. No drug in the world can compare to the high you get from being with someone you love. Nothing like laughing and smiling until your cheeks hurt and you have a cramp in your stomach. Nothing like Sunday morning walks in the park talking about things that once mattered to one another. Nothing like looking at them and seeing in their eyes that they love you too, without even saying it.

But what the story books forgot to mention is that there is no pain quite like heartbreak. That numbing feeling starting in the pit of your stomach and working up into your chest. The lack of air in your lungs no matter how badly to try to breath. The heat of your tears on your face as they run down your neck. There is no pain quite like the pain we inflict upon ourselves.

As we watch them fall in love with someone else. Or when we hurt them, without meaning to, just because you lost your way for a moment. Or when you have to let them go, because you know that their life will be better without you in it. There is no measure of pain, from a scale from one to ten doesn't fit this kind of pain. This kind of pain that you feel in the tips of your toes to the nerves in your brain. You can't measure how much of your life you give to someone. Not with years spent together, but years planned and years missed. Years that you learn each others smiles and voices. A life can last an instant. There is no measure for that.

What the story books forget to tell you is that love will turn your world inside out. Flip your world and yank any source of reality you might have learned right from underneith your feet. You will look in the mirror and wonder what you didn't do right, or if your teeth were straighter or your hair curlier. You'll wake up from a dream where they touched your face and they told you that they loved you one last time. You'll turn off the radio and try to forget the words to songs that are written in your heart. You'll stop visiting your favorite places and walk different ways to work. Your heart will skip every time you see a stupid blue pickup truck.

The story books forget to tell you about the other ever after.. the one that takes a lifetime to get over.

The story books also forget to mention that when your world is turned inside out so that you can see all the things in life from a new perspective. That the smell of fresh cut wood is better than fresh cut grass. That you love to paint, even though you're not good at it. The story books forget to add the part where you learn to love yourself out of forgetting how to love someone else. You'll find new favorite places and listen to different kinds of music.

But I'd have to say the best part.. the part that they really miss out on in those books. Is when all the pain is over, all the tears have dried and the songs stop playing on the radio. You get to look back, you get to see how they made you smile and how no matter how bad things were they could make you smile. They could remind you of how wonderful this life is when life wasn't that wonderful.

So weather you're falling, healing or seeking. Let yourself fall hard, heal fully and seek with intention. Because no matter where you read about love, no one can quite capture the real thing.