Love Exists…

There was a time when the only thing I seemed to wonder about was love.

Does love exist?

Is it real?

If so, what is real-life love supposed to look like?

I wondered about all of these things, but I never seemed to get an answer. Instead, I answered these questions by raising more questions of my own, up to a point where all I did was create a complicated web of endless thoughts and ideas that needed some grounding.

I mean sure, love might exist and it might be special. But in no way can it be romanticised in the way that it is in movies.  Can it?

All of these questions remained unanswered until one day a friend of mine spoke to me about love.

“I get crazy jitters when I think about the person that I love…” She explained.

“…and my emotions seem to go out of control. I feel happiness, sadness, joy, pain and anxiety all at the same time. I think about the endless tears I shed when he causes me pain. I think about the slow pace of my heart beat when he’s not here. And I think about the fast beating of my heart when he is.  I think about the way I lose all source of rationality when he kisses me, and the contentment I feel when I hug him and can feel the rise and fall of his chest. I think about the elongated nights when all I do is dream about him being there with me. And I think about the way he makes me feel so special, as if there is no one else he’d rather be with. Sometimes I think I’ll go crazy because of my thoughts, because I can’t seem to think about anything but him.”

And when I watched her dazed expression as she finished, I tried to fathom what she might’ve meant by ‘love’, and I finally figured it out…

Love lingers in the crisp autumn air as you sit by the porch with your partner and when you make dinner together, working silently in sync as if nothing else could feel more natural.

Love is present in the way your partner looks at you when you wake up in the morning in your bewildered state with your messy hair, and it’s evident in the craziness in his eyes when you make passionate love.

Love exists in the softness of spring and the warmth of summer and in the rampage of heavy rain as it drums against your windowsill creating soft, silent waves.

Love loiters in the background of cute make-ups that follow small petty fights, and it falls down your cheeks in the tears that you shed for one another.

Love is alive in every moment that you spend together, whether good or bad, because love is what gets you through them both.

Love prevails in the trust that you form, because that acts as a foundation for your relationship.

Love remains when all else fails and when you feel like there’s no hope.

And finally, love exists because without it, you two wouldn’t.