in the adversity of the unknown, choose love

Writers, poets, preachers love to talk about love. You can date the mention of this absurd feeling to eons ago, approximately 85 A.D.

What is love? I can go on and on about what love looks like, feels like and sounds like. To me. Everyone experiences love differently. Some get butterflies in their stomachs, some get that palpitating feeling in their core, some say they feel right at home when surrounded by their loved ones. None of it ever applies to me.

Growing up with parents who spent the better half of their marriage fighting to death, I quickly learnt that love is painful, regretful and filled with bitterness. Whatever shot at a normal childhood I had vanished when both of my parents decided to hit the restart button, with other people. Love was cold and unforgiving.

Adolescence came crashing without a warning, I started getting butterflies in my stomach when my crush would look at me. Not in the eye, no. That would be the death of me. We’d spend our time ignoring each other in real life all the while creating our own fairytale through the beauty of technology. Once again, my perception of love changed. Love was anxious and unreal.

I thought I was getting good at this, I had a boyfriend who loved me and everything was okay. Things that used to make me queasy, now excite me. Kissing is no longer enough, every time we’d go out we’d try to push our limits. To see who’d finally snapped and snapped it did. I thought that was love. Giving in to him because I’d rather lose him than to lose myself. He was love. Manipulative, hurtful yet beautiful.

Once again, I packed my bags and continued my journey in pursue of greater things. Success, inner peace, mental health, empowerment. I didn’t realise that deep down I was looking for love. I never found it. It found me. While I was in shambles, feeling defeated of never having someone to depend on. Love found me, seeping quietly into this once hollow space in my heart.

It would be a fairytale to tell you that love came in a form of someone. It did. It was me. I was love all along. My conscience was not ready to accept love for who she is. I had all these expectations of what love is. I forgot that they are merely expectations.

Love is bitter, cold, hurtful, manipulative, anxiety-inducing but it’s also warm, peaceful, strong and empowering.

Love is what we decide when faced with difficult situations. Choose love. Always!