Love Is Complicated, But I Wouldn’t Change A Single Thing About It

I think it’s brave. I think it’s brave to give your heart to someone else. To let them hold it in the palm of their hands as they look at you with their deep brown eyes and say directly to your face, “I’m never going to hurt you.”

I think it’s scary. I think it’s so scary to fall for someone. To see yourself diving headfirst without a flotation device to keep you leveled and safe from drowning. Yet, despite that, you still go for it.

But that’s the risk we take when it comes to love. We don’t always know what the outcome is going to be. We can’t plan out everything that’s going to happen to us. And for some, including myself, that’s a hard pill to swallow.

Sometimes we don’t see love as being possible for us. After growing up and witnessing the worst type of love there was, we feel the same will happen to us. We’ll go down this long road of potential partners, only for them or even you to ruin it. We don’t always know how to hold onto someone when all we’re used to is someone letting go of us. To see us as nothing but temporary.

But we still pine for that permanent love. The kind that makes our chest flutter and not feel like this heavy weight is crushing us every second of every day. The kind of love that makes you realize now that you’re older that those movies they show about happily ever afters and true love are wrong, because what you have instead is real.

There used to be times when I thought it would be so much easier to just not believe in love at all. Because then maybe I wouldn’t get hurt and there would be no reason at all to chase after something that wasn’t ever going to happen. But that’s not how life works, and I’ve had my fair share of good and bad moments with love—some that left me weak at the knees and some that left me begging on my knees onto the floor.

Here’s the thing, though: I wouldn’t change a single thing about it. I wouldn’t change any of the moments I’ve encountered when it came to love or an almost love or a love that still leaves me yearning for their touch even though it’s been too long.

I think the older I get, the more I’m still confused about love. It’s like this book with endless pages, and no matter how many times you keep flipping through thinking you’re done and have it figured all out, a hundred more pages get added to it.

“Love.” It’s the one word that people still can’t figure out. It has no real definition, because each and every person sees it differently. And that’s really complicated, but it’s also beautiful too.

People tell you that you need love in order to survive in this world, and they’re right. But that doesn’t mean the love you need has to be romantic. Sometimes it’s the love we receive through friendships so strong that nothing could break them. The kind of people who have seen you at your absolute lowest but never bat an eye. Sometimes it’s the love we receive from ourselves. The kind that, after looking in the mirror for so many years and hearing those loud chants in your head that you’re ugly or you’re not good enough, there’s now a small echo inching its way through, telling you you’re beautiful and worth it.

I’ve had my fair share of experiences with love. All of them left me with lessons. I don’t see all of my past relationships as failures, because if there’s at least one thing I was able to learn from each one, then it was a blessing to help me along my journey towards a greater love. To be able to know what worked for me and what I do and don’t want in a person.

I believe that each person from my past carries a small piece of my heart. But that isn’t the same one beating in my chest right now. Because I’ve taken the time to mend it and fill it back up with the love I needed to give myself instead of giving it to someone else.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the answers I want when it comes to love. But I can’t wait to keep continuing to figure it all out.