I have been surrounded by love for as long as I could remember. As a child, love was making dinner with my siblings while mom attended night classes. It was my head on her lap, watching Law and Order reruns recorded on VHS, as she softly grazed her hands through my hair. It was awaiting us after long car rides to see family — Queens every month, Toronto every summer—only to beg our mom to stay for one more day. We never had much, but we were rich in love; it was abundant, ubiquitous, enough.
In those days, to accept love, to give love, to allow myself to be surrounded in love was second nature. And yet, somewhere between then and my adulthood, the mechanics of love became rigid and hazy. The meaning of it, my willingness to accept it, and my ability to give it became increasingly more complex.
I imagine falling in love, for the first few times, is like a child who throws themselves on trampolines, jumps across monkey bars, and dives down, head first, on a towering slide. They’re caught in the rush and excitement—blissfully unaware of the potential consequences from their naivety. But, it’s always the first impact—crash, scraped elbow, bruised knee, a broken heart—that jolts a sense of fear. These sudden and unexpected pains morph into subdued voices in our heads, whispering to hesitate before diving head first again. The less daring observers, who watch from the sidelines, are not immune to this. We see our peers sob after they fall off the jungle gym or witness the breakdowns and consequences from messy divorces. Most times, rationality and healthy doses of reality are important—we shouldn’t jump off cliffs or blurt out “I love you” to strangers on the street. Protect your heart, as they say.
But, does a broken heart hurt more than a broken bone?
And even so, does this justify our hesitancy to dive into, accept, and give love abundantly?
brick by brick
I imagine the gift and curse of becoming an “adult” are the experiences we collect over time. They become bricks to the walls we build around ourselves. Like a child wearing elbow pads after their first fall off their bike or stepping off a swing rather than jumping from the highest arc. Broken hearts leave us with an acute yet long-aching pains; it’s only natural to find ways to protect ourselves. But rather than elbow pads, we build walls around ourselves. Questioning, fearing, and refusing love is us stepping off the swing over jumping mid-air.
But, I believe we are less fragile than we give ourselves credit for. I have never broken a bone, but I’ve had my heart torn a few times—by lovers, by friends, by family. However, I’ve found the more I closed myself off to accepting and giving love, the more pain I caused myself and the people I cared for (and who cared for me) most. The less willing I was to open up, the more I isolated myself and the harder it was to climb out of the depths I dug myself in. When we jump into love, so often we hold on to its mystique; it is no wonder we hold onto this intangibility and irrational draw to our first (or second..or third) love. But the greatest flames have the most bitter ends. Or we witness this irrationality and, thus, dissolution in the relationships which surround us as kids. And so often, we pull away from love and its potential inflictions.
to love again
After my first breakup, my brother said something which always stuck with me: “Right now, it may seem impossible to imagine loving someone else. But, the next person you fall in love with, you will love them even more—you just need to be open to it when it arrives.”
One of the most terrifying parts about love is never knowing what it is until it’s practiced; never knowing what is a want vs. what is a need until it’s experienced. Understanding love, in the form you ultimately need, is often a continuous process of experiencing, investing, hurting, healing, and repeating.
But my gosh, what a wonderful privilege we have.1
Pursuing and experiencing love, in all forms, is so integral to the human experience. To love is not just building a connection to someone else, but it in-tandem reinforces a connection with yourself.
Ultimately, I do not believe I have ever regretted loving someone.2 Rather, I regret allowing myself to use love as an excuse for giving more than I should have and for putting my adoration for my partner above myself. So often we use love as a scapegoat for their mistakes, our own mistakes, and our misjudgments in relationships, but we often forget to love is a choice, to love is an action, and, sometimes, just love is not enough.3
I wish there were more ways to phrase and convey love as an intention beyond an atmospheric feeling. Some describe love as magical and grandeur. It’s a spark! It makes us do maddening things! But, I think painting love as a mystical feeling or a romanticized idealism creates an unreasonable and impractical picture. Love is indeed a treasure and, should we have it, we should cherish it as such. But, we cannot hold love on a pedestal or else we may naively accept that it is unattainable or a scapegoat for our irrationality. While love is a clinchingly beautiful and poetically undefinable feeling, the beauty of it is in its simplicity.
the thrill of it all
Last week, I asked a few married friends when they knew their spouse was “The One”. While I awaited for cinematic narratives, their stories were straightforward, candid, and simple. But, it was the way their eyes would light up and, with a brief pause, the quiet recollection of the memory or the thought of their spouse would bring a soft smile. More often than I expected, many said: “And in that moment, I just knew.”
There’s something to be said about their initial reactions and the simplicity in their stories. Perhaps we’ve seen too many movies or read too many young-adult novels.4 I suspect these fictitious or grandstanding narratives have reshaped and complicated our understanding of what love actually is. With these woven complexities, we are less willing to pursue, give, or reopen ourselves to loving someone and receiving their love in return.
Love is to not be worshipped on a pedestal nor should it to be thrown to the shadows. It is not the end all be all nor is it a means to an end. Rather, it is a feeling which permits emotional poetic license— be a bit reckless, fall head over heels, text first, tell your friends about them over and over, yearn to experience the mundane with them by your side. There are moments where we must place love on the sidelines as we focus on other areas within our life. This refocusing allows us to eventually make space for love because love is not as an entirety, but a piece to the whole.
But when you are ready to love again, a sudden fear may strike for just a moment like a child with scraped knees returning to the peak of a swing. But, remember, it’s okay to let yourself go—mid-air, feet first, white knuckles’ final release—and pray this time you stick the landing. Because my gosh, what a wonderful feeling it is to fall once more.
To experience love, in all forms (platonic, familial, romantic), is such a privilege and we are surrounded by love more often than we realize. Imagine the act of love and realizing others around you choose to love you and valuing your being on this earth. I don’t care if it’s your mother, father, sibling or friend, it’s still a choice and they choose to love you. For some reason, the act of us feeling love around us, outside of romantic love, is so under-appreciated. I think romantic love is simply the icing on an (hopefully) incredible cake.
Even my most treacherous ex, I still recognize how much I was able to experience during that period and how much I had grown from that experience. In the end, I became closer to myself and valuing who I was because I recognized I did not deserve that behavior. However, I could understand there are many cases where regret is completely fair. I can only attest to my own experiences with romantic love.
I will bluntly say—if a partner harms you (emotionally, physically)—that is not love. You may give love to them, but just because they say they love you, it does not mean that that is love.
Or so many of us weren’t directly taught by our parents how to love in a healthy way because those conversations weren’t normalized yet. Regardless, I highly recommend reading All About Love by bell hooks.
Hi Erica, Thank you for this. The idea of the simple privilege of getting to love, getting hurt and then loving recklessly again really spoke to me. I really liked the idea of letting go and falling. thanks!