What is Love?

What is love?

That’s a really hard question because love is different to every person, and love can take many forms; for example, the love for a family member is different from the love for a significant other.

I grew up with a boy: we will call him David. After a small misunderstanding in the fifth grade, a mutual crush bloomed between the two of us — one that would only grow stronger as we did older.

I always struggled with these feelings. I told myself that he was nothing more than a childhood crush, and that my “Prince Charming” was somewhere out there waiting for me. And so, once I got a phone, I tried to find him.

This “journey” of mine only ended badly with each attempt, and seemed to hurt both David and I. Despite this, the two of us still managed to get closer — until I was sure that I no longer just had a crush on him, until I was so afraid of this unknown emotion that I tried to pretend it didn’t exist.

Eventually, at the end of the seventh grade, I met another boy on one of our school trips, a boy I talked to right in front of poor David. This boy lived in another state, and so the only means of a connection that he and I could establish would have to be online — we’ll call this new boy Christopher.

I talked to Christopher over the internet for a long time, and the two of us eventually began dating toward the beginning of the eighth grade. I focused all of my attention on Christopher, and soon became nearly infatuated with him: he was nice, he treated me well, and he loved me — and, I thought I loved him as well.

Because of this new relationship, I distanced myself from David during our last school year together — and it was a mistake that I still regret to this day.

Fast forward to the end of the eighth grade. I slowly began to lose feelings for Christopher, despite how much effort I put into convincing myself of otherwise. I began to truly see what was right in front of me — David.

With David, I felt as though time was a blessing — I felt as though every moment we shared imprinted itself into my heart, assuring that I could never forget. I began to treasure school, which it seemed to be too late for as the year would soon be coming to a close — meaning that David and I would soon be going our separate ways.

David was always a very closed-off person. He had a hard outer-core, like a shell that he hid himself within to keep others from getting in. Toward the end of the eighth grade, something must have changed in the way he saw me — because he let me in. And so, not only did I see David, but I felt him.

I realized, much too late, that I never loved Christopher — I loved how he treated me. He told me he cared, he showed me; I didn’t have to force it out of him like I did with David, and it was a lot less effort.

Remember how I said that love can mean different things to different people? Well, to me, love meant that you could find a person — one person that you adored every aspect of, including the things that other people found annoying.

I was wrong.

I didn’t know what love was, and perhaps I still don’t. Love is actually rather simple: it’s a person, and all I can describe is that when you find it you will be able to tell.

It may take awhile; for me, it took four years and a semi-serious first boyfriend.

It was very hard for me to break it off with Christopher, even after I had decided that I didn’t love him. It’s hard to give up the things that give you pleasure — like how he kind he was to me, how loving. But you have to think about the overall situation: if he is willing to treat you with such respect, doesn’t he deserve the same?

I broke up with Christopher because I didn’t love him, and he deserved someone that could return the love that he had to give.

Love is kind of like a scale: to balance it out, you have to have the equal amount of weight on each side. A relationship is two-sided, just like a scale — to have love, the beam has to balance out with enough feeling from each side.

In my relationship with Christopher, our scale was tipping over — his side was heavy and weighed down, while mine stayed empty in the air: there was no love.

I didn’t fully realize that I loved David until after we graduated from our middle school and went to different high schools. I would miss him every second and everything would remind me of him: in this never-dulling pain, I finally understood what love actually felt like.

I suppose that’s the downside of love: it never happens at the right time and it is never convenient.

Why couldn’t David had treated me the way Christopher had? Together, they would have been the perfect boy that I had always dreamt of. Or, why couldn’t I have realized my love for David sooner and not wasted my last year with him on someone else?

The truth is, love is a lesson. You’re meant to learn from it, and to improve on your mistakes. If everything had been perfect from the start, I would have never had this insight or realized what love meant to me.

Perhaps, if the events had gone differently, I never would have discovered the true love for David and would have spent forevermore searching for this “Prince Charming”.

As I write this, I have to really think about every moment that I spent with David — with Christopher. I connect with my feelings, and slow down time — which always seems to be moving too fast.

And so, I suggest that you slow time. Think about your life, and think about that special person in your life:

The boy or girl you consider to just be a friend, would you want something more? Your actual girlfriend or boyfriend, do you love them? Is it too soon to tell?

Consider how they make you feel, and listen to that pull in the right side of your chest that you always usually ignore.

Do you have a David or do you have a Christopher? Do you have both? Or have you got neither?

Love is a distress. In our society, it is either made out to be much too beautiful or much too tragic. True love should be a blend of in-between — an emotion so strong that it can make you shed tears of joy, but also weep words unspoken.

Speak them quickly, or it may soon be too late.

with love, G

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