For so long I have yearned for a love that would move mountains, for a love that seems like it has only ever been sung about; a love that brings tears to the eyes of those who witness it, who appreciate it and envy it. I always thought love was a fleeting substance, like the universe was teasing its occupants with this unobtainable feature, this fictional substance.
I look at myself, almost 23 years old. I look at the years of my adult life, look at the love I thought I had, the love I lost, and the foolishness around the emotion. I have a lot of thoughts running through my mind at all hours of the day and I would be lying if I said the majority of them didn’t settle on the topic of love. Who is worthy of love? Who deserves my love? Who’s love do I deserve? When will love happen? What is the true meaning of love? Will love be enough?
I like to think I have my priorities straight when it comes to the thought of love, a beautiful and vibrant emotion that means so much more than a union between two like-minded individuals. But those four little letters mean so much.
I love my friends, and I would do anything for them, but it is through their secret little actions that the love becomes a blinding energy when we are together. I love the way my best friend always knows how to make me smile and I love how alike we are. I love how we read each other’s minds. I love her cute little laugh. Such a love, such a bond, that is rare for some to understand without feeling it themselves. Yet her and I are not in love. We do not have a desire to join our hands and become one. We both understand that we are two pieces of the same soul, or soul family, and we love each other in ways that only family can.
But then there is that red hot love, the emotion you feel when he looks at you, when you make eye contact or he puts his arms around you. But this love is the one you have to look out for. It consumes, and although it can be invigorating, it can also burn. And I have been burnt. But I’ve also seen things that you only read about in story books.
Right after my relationship ended I didn’t want to believe in love. I had thought he was the one, until one day I knew he wasn’t. That one day when I started caring more about appearances than the actual people. I stopped caring about myself, stopped recognizing that I was no longer in love, I was just in love with the idea of it. I pushed the idea around in circles, hoping that the longer I sat on it the more chances I had to fix it. I believed that the “love” I was in was maybe just in need of repair. I believed in fate. I believed in soul mates. Why would the universe send me someone I wasn’t meant to be with? Why was I the one, who wished so long and hard for an endless love, who was slowly watching her vision of love fall apart?
When we parted ways, the idea of romance fell away and I replaced it with a love of a different sort: a love of myself. I threw my mind and emotions into the same energy, but one that filled me with light, with happiness. I began to realize that it wasn’t just about being in love with someone, but it was simply about being in love. With the world, with yourself, with your life.
I fall in love every day, with adorable customers or actions of one of my animals. I love the way I am beginning to surround myself with people who have quirks and qualities that I repeatedly fall in love with, with the stories we share and the photos we’ve taken. I fall in love every time I take another look at those photos, when I remember the emotions felt during those times of bliss. The love felt as we hugged it out or laughed until our sides hurt. That is love, plain and simple. That is love in its purest form, where you love, and you accept, and flaws don’t have any meaning.
But then I see what is missing. It is not for a lack of love, but it is for a lack of the last piece of love. The love that consumes. The love that moves mountains, that people look at and all they can do is stop and smile, because the love is one that is so bright. I hear the songs and part of me has a hard time envisioning this love, but I have always been a hopeless romantic and I have always held the idea of love in my heart. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I see this love around me, in two, if not more, separate couples that circle in my group of friends. I see this love and it gives me hope that this feeling is more than something just written about in songs.
I know I will find this love because I believe if you dream it, you wish it, you will end up doing it. And I know, with proof shown in the aforementioned couples, that a love like this truly does exist.
You may not believe in love, trust me, I didn’t either. But now I do. And even though I’m not in a relationship, I have to remind myself that there really is no rush because I know that when I do find the person I am meant to be with, we will have a love that moves mountains, a love that others look to because they know it is one for the books.
| cassie
Streamers of Stardust 