1. You’re lonely. They’re there. But you don’t think of it that way. They’re kind, and they soothe all your heart’s dents with their pretty smiles and warm hands and shallow promises of forever. You know it’s not right, but you know it’s right now, and you’re okay with loving someone like that for the time being.
2. Your mind chatters you into conviction about all the reasons that this someone is meant to be your someone. You see yourself in different puzzle-piece-like-bits, and that mindset is where this misunderstood love starts, because you start thinking you need someone whose puzzle pieces fit yours. But they aren’t stapled like that, and neither are you. But you will believe this, and you will fit that picture nicely together until you realize there’s more to you, and to them.
3. Your mind and soul and how they feel about someone are annihilated by physical attraction, something else that you probably won’t realize until much later on. You’re drawn to them inextricably and passionately and senselessly. You were taught this is what the fairy tales are made of: seeing someone and being overwhelmed with knowing. You figure out the truth eventually.
4. You look for yourself in someone else. You know you’re lost, and you think this person can help you find you. You realize that in doing so, you only end up farther gone in them, miles further from where you started.
5. You find yourself caught in the comfort of having someone. You feign romance in place of the platonic-ness you don’t want to be the truth. You were taught the best relationships begin in friendships. You think you’ve found that. You push for it. You learn that pushing for love only works when there’s love to be yielded.
6. They’re a detour from the ordinary. They are reckless and wild and mysterious and they challenge everything you thought you wanted. You return to your initial inklings, eventually. But while you’re in that moment, you are a torch and they are your ignition. These loves serve a great purpose. They drive you forward, and make you sit with the pieces of yourself that are left when they leave.
7. For reasons unbeknownst to you, you’ll love someone. Theirs will be a love that is volatile and confusing and maddening at times, and you’ll leave, and you’ll be convinced that you should never be together. But what you’ll find is that that love was the catalyst of your becoming. That love never went away, and there are road signs and writings and unspoken words that are abundantly clear, and it’s not that you’re afraid to love them. You’re afraid to admit that you love them. You’re afraid to be torn apart again. You were taught that love is supposed to be patient and kind, and not something that challenges you and changes you and makes you who you are. You’ll love this someone because they changed what you thought love was. You’ll love them because you know you’re meant to, and because this knowing comes from a place so deep within you, it’s something that cannot be reckoned with. It simply is, as are you.
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