I Believe In Love, But Finding It Isn’t Everything

That wonderful feeling everyone talks about, how your once empty heart becomes full or your once guarded heart becomes opened, that thing people like to call love, finding it isn’t everything. Sometimes we’re so caught up in the idea of it, of what it means and if it’s real, and how to act and where to go in order to find it, but love isn’t like some scavenger hunt you try and race to complete.

There’s not a check list of things you MUST do despite what the internet tells you (myself included). And it’s not my intention to discredit that there are certain things you can do that will increase your likelihood of finding it, or that there are certain things you shouldn’t do if you want to find something that’s real.

Because I do believe in love. I believe in the way it makes us feel and the crazy things it makes us do. I believe that we sometimes mistake it for what it’s not, and that we sometimes think we’ve found it in people who have fooled us. I believe that it’s meaningful and enriches our lives in ways we don’t even realize until we can recognize that it’s there. I believe in love, and it’s not my intention to say that love doesn’t matter. It’s to say that it’s not the only thing that does, and you’ll drive yourself crazy if you live your life thinking it is.

Because your life is already full of love that you’re completely unaware of. And when you’re trying so hard, when you’re searching in every wrong place and still even trying to search in the right ones, you’re missing the love that you are surrounded by each day.

Because the boy who looked into your eyes and told you you were beautiful, the boy who talked about the future but didn’t stick around long enough to make it happen, the boy who finally gained access to your heart and left it broken when he did, that wasn’t love. That was life.

That was putting your effort into something, someone, that unfortunately didn’t deserve it. And that happens, a lot. And as much as it hurts, as much as it makes you want to give up, or feel sorry for yourself to the point where you’re unrecognizably different, unrecognizably weak, remember that this thing or this person who broke you, that wasn’t love. That was a mistake. Because you’re strong, not weak, and you deserve love, and your life is already full of it in ways you’re failing to see.

Because your mom texting you asking you how your week was, that’s love, and your friend from college who you haven’t seen in who knows how long messaging you on Facebook telling you she thinks about you all the time and is wondering how you are, that’s love.

Love is in the places we’re not actively looking for it, that’s why finding it isn’t everything.

Because sometimes we come across it when we’re not trying to find it. Sometimes it’s already there, but we’re missing the ability to understand it. And the love that you can identify, the love that is not mistaken, or misunderstood, the love that is not lost, that is the love in your life that’s real. That’s the love that is everything, and that’s the love you’ve already found.