love isn’t supposed to be a degree. but i think i need it.
thousands of books on relationships, and i still have no idea about a thing.
The highschool sweetheart phase is always both the best and the worst. It’s always the usual, “hey, this might be it, the beginning of my life — when I want a certain someone, and the drill of them wanting me back.”
(She wanted the perfect everything. The perfect love story, the perfect first date night, the perfect ‘i-can-fix-them’ story.)
(Long story short, he didn’t. He probably did, but he’s also lost. He searched for love, got confused in the moment, and wanted the perfect ‘this can last for years’ story.)
If they didn’t, partly it’s alright, but it’s left me questioning whether if I was worth loving at all. If they did, well, it’s all flowers and smiles and all the beautiful poetries and maybe I’ve written about those smitten times either. But amidst “maturing”, we’d realize all the different kinds of love.
The first love. Either it’s a win or not at all. It’s unforgettable and it’s terribly messy yet beautiful. It’s blinding in a way that “you might not realize I was being toxic but still into you.” It’s blinding in a way where dating is just for fun and not that serious. Until it all comes down to bills, communication, etc. Until it all comes down to “whether my father liked you or not.”
(but it’s funny, isn’t it? first, it was our parents’ love story. now they’ve settled with marriage, and it’s our turn to experience ours.)
The second one, the “i have seen this film before, and i didn’t like the ending.” Either we’ve learned or not. It can be the right one right away, but life happens in unexpected twists and turns for it to be the one.
And so on, and so on, and so on, until we find the right one. (Spoiler alert: i’ve said a thing or two about there’s no such thing as ‘the right one’)
But what about the love of you? Your love of you?
The love of ourselves?
Love isn’t supposed to be a degree, but I think I need it. Because a growing, maturing love is suddenly about paying taxes and doing laundry. It’s suddenly about baking together, finding a business to grow a passive income, it’s way more than just the talking stage. Love isn’t meant to be translated nor figured out. Love is just meant to be felt, properly.
Yes, there are books on love that are insightful. But I think it all boils down to experience and the heart. That tiny whisper of the heart that tells you it’s alright to make mistakes. It’s alright to have expectations. Everyone has different wounds and ways of coping. Everyone has their own deep, dark secrets and personalities. When we’re hurt, we walk away. When we demand truth, we communicate.
But always expecting love from external values, well, it’s also funny how each humans are most probably taught to give love to one another, yet we still have unfulfilled expectations on how to be loved. So we might hurt each other. Maybe that’s human. Maybe that’s love. Love that’s slowly growing and learning. You’ll search for love in the tiniest cracks in sidewalks. You’ll wait for love like expecting a flower to bloom as soon as possible. You’ll wait for love until it slowly, someday, because love with no place to go.
Thousands of quotes and fictional depictions and biological assumptions about love. Thousands of verses and religious acts on love. Countless attempts on love and we still have no idea how to do it properly. Probably because we’re humans, whether deserving or not.
The highschool sweetheart phase is finished by now. You’d be either graduating college or starting a business. Life is entirely different. You don’t really listen to romance podcasts anymore. But we all know, that love was there. Whether it’d become a big wound one day, or even a sweet secret bliss, it’s just like wondering whether the beautiful hanging gardens were real or not. Not really there. Just assumptions. Just gestures, imagination, and.. bound by time.
And it’s really beautiful how among millions and billions of humans living in the world, we all have different definitions and memories on love. The loss and learnings. The cries and laughters. The grief that comes much after, peacefully. Like how the ocean softly wraps its arms around the earth’s rockiest paths. How the waves calmly calls for the skies. How the world keeps spinning, despite the love and hatred confessed. How the world is made of love, and it keeps spinning. Until it ages. It changes. Time passes. We’re older, older, and older. Different love come and go. By time.
It’s endless. They say humans have limited capability of understanding the entire universe despite technological advancements. But it’s endless. And I agree. Everyday, we learn and experience something unexpected, foreign, and new. But it’s alright. The waves never crashed too loudly. The stars always show themselves at the right time. Nature is never running out of time, so shouldn’t we.
There are millions of moments where I wish time would stop when everyone was happy. Now everyone’s unhappy, I guess. But looking back, I think even when everyone was happy, there’s a little sadness hidden among them. Time keeps ticking no matter how much we beg them to just stop. But slowly, we also grow. Gently, lovingly, slowly, surely. Don’t wait for it, because it’s already there, deep within your heart. You’ve loved so much that you also experience sadness and it’s alright. Because that love, will grow again, by time.
It’s best if we remain a student on love, on life. No graduations needed. Thesis defenses are stressful anyway.
And most importantly, maybe you’re the love you’ve been waiting for.
