ON LOVE

It's 1:30 a.m. and I'm waiting for my hair to dry. I like air-drying it every few days so it gets a rest. I've got a lot of hair so I decided to write while I wait about something I never thought I'd have the spine to write about: love. 

Not love of self or love of friends or family. This time I'm going to try my hand at talking about romantic love. 

A few months ago, I was so lucky to capture this moment. An elderly couple sitting in a park, whispering and laughing together. It looked like they were sharing the man's newspaper. 

Now, I'm not sure if their story is Camila-Prince Charles-esque. But I would like to assume that they've been together most of their lives and nobody had to die for them to get together.  

I kept watching them (in a very uncreepy way) and I thought, how on earth did they last that long? 

Love is complicated. We know this because long before we had sites like Thought Catalog dissecting the complexities of love and all its cliches, we had Romeo and Juliet. We also had legions of philosophers and theologists trying to figure out love, Cleopatra and Antony and all the stories of Greek Mythology. Many wars have been started because of love. 

At the same time, love is quite simple. Love is, well, love. We all struggle to find a way to describe it because love simply is. 

I’ve come to believe that what complicates love are the considerations we have around the love that we end up having in our lifetime. 

Is the other attractive? Of the preferred age? Has a decent source of income? Of a respectable background? And the more recent criteria: will you laugh at the same things? Similar taste in food? Same "wavelength"? No known sex tapes/scandals? Most importantly, are they emotionally available? 

  

And regardless of saying yes to all those questions, you may not end up with someone you will truly love. In the same way that in missing some of those things, you may find true love.  

  

Because, really, no partner will always be who you hope or want them to be. No two people are ever alike. Human beings are too great of a creation to be fathomed by a young woman's brain. As such, the “perfect” partner will be someone you cannot imagine. And for this very reason, love is born.  

As you discover the weaknesses and shortcomings of one another, love is seasoned over time. 

  

You put up with the disagreements, the questions and worries, the moments of mismatched humour, the snoring, the disappointments, the short fuses, the differences in habits and opinions. Yet with all this "putting up" and constant test of patience, you find that there is no big enough reason to be with someone else. And you choose to be together over and over again. 

Love becomes simple, stripped of so many considerations and worries, though it's never easy.  

  

Love is a series of unmet expectations that result in pleasant surprises.  

Very different from the “He's so perfect! Nobody's ever made me feel this way before!" squealing and the relationships seemingly in a constant state of euphoria that entertainment news would like us all to believe.  

And as far as romantic comedies go, it’s the meet cutes that seem unbelievable. What shouldn't be unbelievable is finding someone who will choose and accept you because of all of the insanity you both go through. It can happen in real life. It happened to my friends. It can happen to anyone. It even happened to me. 

I made a white lie about this post. This did start at 1:30am while I was drying my hair. But this was finished over a month later. I wasn't sure what to say or how to say it. In my head, it made sense, but each time I wrote something down, I felt like a big chunk of what love is to me flutters away and escapes my writing. It's a very scary and very evasive topic. 

And I’m not sure how to end this anymore. But let me try.

Love takes a lot of grit, but somehow it just keeps on happening to you and whoever loves you back. It’s built on a shared history mixed with the good and the bad that in some twisted way brings hope for the future. So when it comes, let it happen.