I love you. Je T’aime. Te amo.  Three of the most powerful words in any dialect. Where does love begin? Love seems to be the universal word for so many feelings and emotions.  I said “I love you” romantically for the first time when I was 18 years old. For privacy issues, the young lad in question will be known as “Steve”. I met Steve at the church I was attending at the time. We were both volunteers. Our romance was a whirlwind. It was quick and it was messy. I was desperately looking for love in any form at this stage in my life. We exchanged “I love you’s” after a few short months together. Along with my declaration of love, I gave him something that I vowed to hold onto. My virginity. Thus began the haze. I knew we wouldn’t last and I knew he was the wrong person for me and yet I plunged headfirst into the deep waters of infatuation. I convinced myself that our love would last and that his pending college acceptance to a university miles from home would have no bearing on the outcome of our relationship. I mean, the only reason he would ever think to leave me would be because long distance relationships are so difficult and he needed to focus on his studies. Right? It couldn’t possibly be the fact that I was an emotional vampire who sucked the very life right out of him. Hindsight is always so very 20/20. Much to my dismay, our whirlwind romance had come to an end. I was devastated. I incessantly called him, begging him to take me back. Which ALWAYS goes over so well. There were many factors in the demise of our seemingly picturesque partnership, but the one that I choose to shed light on today was my deep rooted need to be loved and my quest to find it. I would love to tell you that Steve was an asshole who just fucked me and then left, but that would be a lie. Steve didn’t stand a chance against my journey to find love. The poor, unfortunate soul was swallowed whole into the rose colored abyss. So what went wrong? We cared for each other, we were attracted to each other and we had fun in each other’s presence. We LOVED each other. I didn’t know what happened until years later. At first I blamed him for the crash of 2004. And then I was angry. And then I was ambivalent. I chose to detach myself from the knowledge that I had ever known him. He didn’t exist. If he didn’t exist I didn’t have to face what went wrong.

That was almost 12 years ago. I am in the twilight of my twenties and will be 30 in a few short weeks and I can confidently tell you that I know, unequivocally, where things took a turn for the worst. It was the moment that I chose that I was not LOVE in its purest and most powerful form. It was when I looked outwardly for what I had already obtained. Love begins with me. Love of self. Recognizing that I am the love that I had set out to find years ago. I look back on that time in my life and I am so full of gratitude. The ending of that relationship was a beginning. The soul exchange I had with Steve was crucial to my spiritual development. It was this experience that paved the way for me to truly learn what love is. It is Me. I AM LOVE. To Steve, thank you and my 18 year old self apologizes for the unrealistic and unfair notion that you were her end all and be all. I hope that wherever you are that you are happy and that you recognize your own nature. LOVE. We are all LOVE.  We cannot love and experience love in the way that we deserve until we fall in love with ourselves. That is where it begins. They don’t call it “falling in…” on accident. Go ahead my darlings. Fall hard into the Divine LOVE of your very being. Much love.

xo,

M