When I was young, I noticed an interesting trend surrounding how love was depicted in songs. His true love’s hair was strawberry blonde, her lips were as red as strawberries, her voice was as sweet as strawberries. These comparisons, made through lilting pitches and breezy sighs prompted further investigation from my six year old self. What was so special about strawberries? They were sort of funny shaped, as far as fruits go, and they had a lot of seeds on the outside that bothered my tongue. But these infatuated songwriters never mentioned these things. Was love the vibrant, shining shades of pink and red on the berry? Love must be the sweetness. Surely love wasn’t the sticky juice that dripped down my face and left spots on the carpet to annoy my mother.
I started to build my idea of love — the strawberry.
When I would fall in love, I decided, the day would be hot, almost sticky but not unpleasant, like the trails of strawberry juice down my fingers. My lips would be red and shiny and beautiful, like the outside of a strawberry, and my cheeks would be a delicate pink. When I daintily bumped into my Prince Charming, my cheeks would deepen into a red blush and my life would be changed into something sweet and sugary, like his voice and his words and every tender moment spent with my true love.
As it turns out, I hate strawberries.
The first boy I fell in love with was a banana. He was lanky and messy, and tripped over his thoughts and feet more often than he got things right. He was bright and funny, and everything seemed great on the surface. I never thought I could like him if he wasn’t my strawberry, but this one was different. He made things fun. And, like a banana, we quickly turned to somewhat of an unappealing brown mush.
It was after I fell out of love with the banana that I realized there was so much more to love. Love isn’t just a strawberry when it’s your Prince Charming, or a banana when it’s your first crush. For me, love can be a chicken curry, when I get home from months away at school and the house smells exactly like it should, warm and rich, familiar and spicy, and I realize that some things won’t change, no matter how far I go or how long I’m away, and that can be good. Love is sometimes peanut butter cookies that are a little bit (or a lot) burned on the bottom, but that’s okay, because when they’re being shared with your best friend, who knows just how imperfect you are and somehow still loves you, those cookies taste better than anything. Sometimes, love tastes a lot like tangerines when you see someone you haven’t seen in forever, and she sits with you at work and you talk about how you’ve both changed over the past six months and yet she’s still just as supporting of you as ever, and it’s refreshing and sweet and timeless. Love is the last French fry, because he lets you steal it even though they’re his but he likes you more than he likes French fries, and you like that. Some loves are like cheesecake, and you want it more than anything before you have it, and it’s brilliant at first, but with time you sort of start to hate how great it seemed and realize it advertised a lot more than it was. Sometimes, I’ve found, love is a lollipop, and it’s fun and quick and a little bit messy; but love is never something to regret once it’s gone, because love coming to an end means you had it in the first place and that’s amazing.
Love can be a strawberry, I suppose.
But more often than not, it’s way too complex to be just a berry.
