I don’t know exactly how to put it into words, but I realized something. The other day, I was struck with the thought “okay, I want to love and be loved again”, but that’s not it fully. It’s more than that. What I want is to actually put in work for love, maybe for the first time ever. What I thought love was has changed. I thought love was instinctual, destined, pre-written. I thought a lover was someone who knows everything about me without having ever asked.
I used to fantasize about my loved knowing my exact coffee order, picking out the perfect meal at a restaurant just because they knew me, but that is…an impossible standard, a childish fallacy, and a love that is not equivalent. That is not love; that is obsession.
Now what I want is to make a meal for someone. I want to sit and watch Jeopardy with someone and be shocked when they shout out an answer to an absurdly specific question. Love is not having memorized every letter written on the pages of someone’s heart; it is being excited that the book never ends, the words always changing and new discoveries always ahead.
I do not want my love to be effortless.
Love is in the effort.
Voted Most Dramatic 