Love isn't love till...

Part 1

Call me a skeptic but I've always been afraid to fall in love.

I do not think I had the slightest clue what love was or what it meant when I grew up.

But it is a feeling that naturally crept in through the backdoor.

I never realized it was always within me. Funny right?

When people think of love, the first instinct is eros, the romantic kind.

I mean, it is the reason why most of us are here today.

We were born out of love, even if you feel it was another type of love, it is love regardless.

This truly baffled me for years as an adolescent but as a 20-year-old, I have a whole new perspective on love.

Love has been a bitter-sweet journey for me; not so different from how human beings have historically interacted with it but--

There's something about experiencing different forms of love for yourself.

It is so surreal when you do not know the end.

I always thought love was so precious that I had to keep sealed for the few lucky ones that cross my path.

I just so happened to have a vase full of love and it would always slip through the cracks without consciously knowing it.

I lived a life overflowing with love but I never realized it.

I loved myself so dearly but I could not see it.

I let the world around me make me hate myself.

I could not realize I loved life and all it had so dearly because I did not think it was love. I thought it was yet another human emotion I had failed to label.

I realized it was love when I liberated myself from worldly expectations.

I started to ask what God expected of me. How did He want me to know love?

Growing in love with people who are equally liberated to script a completely different definition of what love is and means is the best part.

Realizing the freedom to write my own love story was so liberating.

The weight on my chest felt a little lighter when I realized how much I love blue skies and sunsets. I love how deep the ocean floor ran and my insignificance in this vast unknown world. I love cruising on its waves with the wind behind my back. I love my antifragility in tough times and my craving for tender love. I discovered I crave the good kind of love from those around me. I have loved life so desperately with everything in it but I started to live a life full of love when I realized I had to give it to others too.

I love spending quality time with good people and strangers alike as long as the conversation holds! This realization opened up a space for a lot of pain and hurt.

At the back of my mind, I knew sometimes, some things in life have to give even when you think it is unfair. I needed to understand sometimes my love was not necessarily aligned with what other people or things needed. Like Isak Danielson sang, "Sometimes a flower would bloom just to nurture the ground," and that's all it ever was.

The unfolding is what one has to deal with.

Understanding that pain and heartbreak come as a result makes it a little worth it.

I fancy the idea of wanting to learn from every tangent life throws my way.

It makes my recovery from situations a little easier because I know how it feels to be stuck in a relentless cycle of "why me?" We never ask, "why not me?"

We all deserve good things in life but equally other things it brings.

Cherry-picking how to live saps the experiences which make life worthwhile.

Like the faded dye on our favorite pair of jeans, everything has its time.

Growing comfortable with the end and the much they could give helps us create a space for new beginnings. We are also heavily characterized by mortality which says a lot.

This does not mean you should not fall in love because life feels finite.

Love!

Just love!

Love better, love harder, and love falling in love with love!

But first, learn to love yourself because you cannot give what you do not possess.

Learn about perfect love from God if you are religious.

Learn how to love from selfless love rather than examples of what love is.

Learn what love is from children because they are so pure in heart.

If you think about it, we are still children. Age is nothing but a number.

Love that child within you and watch how much unfolds from it.

I am overflowing with words to write because I realized how much I am swelling with flashbacks and memories full of love. That is the thing about love. You want to keep digging deeper.

The more you talk and think about it, the more you see its presence in your life.

I found God and continuously grew in love with Him every day.

I have good friends to love, something I never thought I would have.

I have family and friends to love me, new things to fall in love with, and a man to love dearly.

Above all, God loves me and you more than you can imagine.

So love!

And love fiercely.

Nothing but cocoa love,

Sam 🌻