In love

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Foggy Tuesday on campus

on being in love

I spoke to a friend earlier this week about the process of falling out of love, and realized that it isn’t just heartbreak, and it isn’t immediate. It fundamentally changes the way you approach love, any relationship, platonic or romantic. It changes how you view yourself, how you gauge love in the future, it’s the fear that nothing will ever come close to the feeling you had. It’s being scared that since they didn’t ever feel the same love for you that you did for them, nobody ever will. Sometimes, my brain convinces me that I’ll never be able to feel the same sensation again because I have changed so much, even though I’m in the same body and my mind and soul are objectively linked to one another, thus kind of unchanged since being in love. But, rationality is rarely found in the depths of love, and this is reflected for a long while after. I’ve spent so much time being angry at myself for still feeling it, for letting it affect how I go about my days and my weeks. I’ve questioned my inner strength while I sit in the back of a car, staring into the rearview mirror with a ginormous lump in my throat, feeling too sad to cry but too sad to not. Seeing them with other people just reminds me of how we used to be, but right when I think about that, I blame myself for being too self-centered, too absorbed by the past. But, I think it’ll take a lot longer than a few months for my views on myself and my relationships to shift completely, and that is okay!

I go into relationships more cautiously now. I try not to share too much right away, because I know love is mortal and I never know if it’s worth it, because I never know when it will fizzle out, because I trust less easily. I try never to get my hopes up, but I miss getting my hopes up. I miss being excited about the potential of something and thinking about it for days in advance and being giddy and nervous around someone I have a crush on. I miss watching rom-coms and not being sad, I miss looking at it all through a positive light. I know that will all come back, I just have to take the time to summon it. I want to believe in something because maybe that would make it more feasible, but I don’t want to believe in something because I don’t want to be let down. I don’t have time for feeling like I am drowning in something, or preoccupied by the prospect of something. There is too much going on in my life and in the world besides romance and intimacy, and so I try to look outside of it as much as I can. I still love love, and I don’t think that will ever change. I love seeing two people in a restaurant holding hands across the table, or seeing people on a park bench, thighs grazing against each other, fingers barely touching. I love seeing my friends and their partners happy and bringing out the best in each other. More than anything, I love witnessing my parents’ love, and am so grateful to have an example of what a long lasting, healthy love looks like. Their love, admiration, and loyalty for each other will never cease to amaze me, and they will forever be my favorite example of two people who love each other so hard that it never fades, even during a fight, even during personal hardships. I grew up joking that I was their third wheel, but in reality, it was a gift to constantly be surrounded by such a prevalent and steady love. If love is hope, there is so much hope that can be found within the two of them.

I am also their photographer and look what a good job I do!

Love lingers, and it’s okay to welcome or to resent that. It’s okay to be angry that someone who knew you better than almost everyone is no longer in your life. It’s okay to feel for as long as you want, it’s okay to give yourself grace and cry about it for years. It’s okay to let yourself mourn, and it’s okay to give yourself permission to heal. It’s also okay to continue seeing love in whatever light feels most comfortable to you. To me, that’s the way I saw love when I was a kid. It’s seeing my parents in love and thinking I had the same thing, then telling my first crush I liked him and holding hands in the little fake kitchen, with the fake dishes and the fake stove that we made lunch on. It was writing and talking about love without any shame or hesitance, and expressing that love just as boldly and confidently as how I wrote and read about it. 

Me circa 2009

I’ve gained so much more from being in love than I have lost. Not all of those gains have been seemingly positive. I have gained caution when it comes to entering into love, and I have gained reservation and worry. I have gained shelter, hesitance, and even sometimes cynicism. I have also learned how capable I am of feeling deeply, and how hard I love. I have learned that it is okay to keep some of my energy, and that I don’t have to give away anything that I don’t want to, anything I want to hold onto for a while longer. I am beginning to learn that just because someone doesn't love you in the same capacity you love them does not mean there is something fundamentally wrong with you, nor that you are unlovable. I have learned that I’m good at loving people, and that I’m a good listener and receptive to people’s needs, while holding true to my own. And maybe most importantly, I’ve learned that if a love ends, or if it never began, I will be okay. I have my girls, I have my family, I have constants. I have my own company, I have my own space and my baby kitten and my books and my journal and my tarot and old flowers.I am surrounded by abundance and joy, and no matter how deep down all of that feels right now, I know it never goes away.

Me circa 2023, still just as excited about rainbows

1. Walks to dinner! It’s going to be dark while I walk to dinner soon so I have really been enjoying seeing the sunset and some pretty clouds on the way to the dining hall (romanticizing the Bon). My friends and I also go to dinner right at 5pm a lot of the time which I think is quite funny and I love it.

2. My new shoes! They are the Gola badminton court sneakers and they are so comfy! I have been wearing them with cute socks and skirts or fun pants and I love having a shoe that goes with everything (other than my Doc Martens and my cowboy boots which I like to pretend go with anything and everything I wear).

3. Dried fruit from Trader Joe’s. I have been whizzing through bags of it like there is no tomorrow. Banana chips, dried pineapple, dried mango, dried apricots, dried clementines. My favorite easy snack lately. Delectable!

The Venezuelan Poodle moth is a fluffy little bug that has only been found once in 2009. This is the only picture of the moth, and most of what we know about this little guy is speculation or based on other species of moth. We do know that they are made of chitin, which is an insect equivalent to the cellulose found in the cell walls of plants. This fluffy layer absorbs sound and helps with structural support.

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Thank you all for reading and I hope your Sunday is lovely! Also, thought I should mention that I saw a sleeping sloth and an armadillo last night and they were literally highlights of my life. I wanted to pet the sloth so badly and I got in trouble for accidentally falling into the glass around his enclosure. Every dance should be at a science museum

Ok I’m gone for real now! Cheers love u