How I Fell In Love With Europe

I believe that in order to love at all, to live life to the fullest, you have to fall in love constantly.

Fall in love with little things like a good cup of coffee; fall in love with once-in-a-lifetime opportunities; fall in love with moments, experiences, and places. If you do, you’ll scatter parts of your heart everywhere you go.

It was in a trip to Luxembourg that I lost pieces of my heart—pieces I wanted to leave and pieces I didn’t expect to give. I left my heart in sidelong looks, subtle moves to get closer, coy flirting, and drunken clinging. I scattered my heart in Dachau, in my first Jager shot and in soccer celebrations, in running through streets, and at a cold fountain. Bits are in the Wombat Bar. I smashed some with a stolen shot glass.

I didn’t leave my heart in London, but instead with the three girls I traveled with, in their curious questions, in their instant camaraderie, in their smiles and laughs and warmth.

Pieces of my heart were left in the bottom of the 2 Euro fruity beers and around the corner of Das Boot. Pressed up against the gate, you asked if you could kiss me and I scattered a few pieces like bread crumbs right there in the cold night air. I didn’t mind leaving my heart with a gentleman.

I scattered pieces in the Orange phone texts and the iMessages, Facebook messages, and Twitter DMs; in all the laughing and taunting and teasing and dreaming.

Sharp shards of surrender filled up that queen bed with blacked out decisions. Pieces of our 5 AM conversation still make me cry when I think about the simplicity and confusion and beauty.

Thank you for remembering what I forget.

I left those other pieces of my heart far away, somewhere in Oxford or Harrison or I don’t know where else. I would leave more and more of my heart in the bar the drunker we got, the only time we were okay with affection.

Switzerland opened my heart and my love for Zurich splashed all over the city—from the hotel to the Rhine Falls to the boat ride we finally went on. I couldn’t get enough of the water. Fragments then burst out and landed on the tram and train when you made me feel undesired and immature. I retaliated, hoping that cold, cruel silence would give me back some of the pieces you took. I desperately tried to compensate for going back home, knowing that it would never be the same.

Nowadays, I’m learning you can scatter your heart at home just as easily as you can abroad. But sometimes, though, I wish I was still leaving pieces with you.