It may seem love is dead. No one relaxes at your school library or your college hangout spot on the weekend and locks eyes with you like love at first sight. No one surprises you with flowers at your front door or at your job. Even just surprising you in general with a spontaneous date, or now “link.”
I hate the new dating lingo. It’s either as previously said a “link” or a “hook-up” or a “sneaky link” if you really meet a charmer. What do all of these even mean?
Everyone’s definition is different. Which makes relationships confusing. You can spend every week with the same guy and yet have no idea whether you’re exclusive, if you’re loyal and he’s not, if he’s loyal and you’re not, or if you’re both loyal without knowing and still confused.
That sentence may have made no sense at all. However, that’s precisely the point. It doesn’t make sense. Dating now is never simple. Maybe because love is dead.
I’m learning that love is not just a feeling. It is a mix of everything combined into a bittersweet symphony. Sweet in the sense of passion and partnership with a person you care about and ultimately share a part or a whole of your life with.
However, bitter in the sense that it takes work. Work means communication.
Every night, my boyfriend and I (we’ll call him Albanian man since he’s fully Albanian) Facetime and watch our favorite show at the moment. The Sopranos. A show that may prove love is dead through its endless appeal of the husbands constantly cheating on their wives and flaunting their goomahs.
However, Tony Soprano’s wife Carmela once said in Season 4 to Furio in regard to communication, “That’s what love is built on.”
I heard that and instantly glanced over at Albanian man on my Facetime screen. I knew that that’s what our love is built on and what made it so strong. The strongest I’ve ever experienced.
It seems that if you want to love someone and have them love you for who you are, both parties have to be extremely honest and raw. Share intimate details about one’s life. Maybe not your entire life story. Whatever is most comfortable. And most definitely not all at once.
However, one day at a time is filled with new information about the other. From favorite colors to favorite foods to how many siblings each has to talk about death and ultimately what you suffer from.
It’s a lot. A lot of information. How can one even keep track? Well, it doesn’t matter too much. All that matters is the point that love is not one way. It is in multiple ways.
It is not straight. It turns down different streets. It is not closed once open. The doors open every day and never close. It doesn’t grow until it’s dead like a flower. It grows and dies and blooms again in reincarnation to repeat.
This all sounds like a jumble of meaningless words. Almost hopeless sounding.
And that’s how I felt. Until I found love in my Albanian man. Ironically enough, it was a love at first sight at my weekend college hangout spot.
However, not the type of juvenile love you feel in high school or when you’ve been in the same toxic cycle with your sneaky link for over two years. And most definitely no goomahs involved.
It’s the type that you discover when you least expect it. After you wanted it most and gave up. It stumbles on your straight path and makes you turn every day. It opens your door to never close it but to open it to new entrances every day. It grows with you, dies with you, and blooms with you. Not grow with you until you die and leave you dead.
I have somehow discovered a love like this after years of being burned. I thought love was dead until a higher power granted it to me. A real partnership. Where those jumble of meaningless words actually developed meaning and I learned how to apply them in life. And I’m still learning how to be in such a partnership with this person I love. That’s normal.
I know for certain in my heart I’ve found love. Even if it were to God forbid die with a heart-wrenching breakup, it wouldn’t. The love would be over but not gone because this type of special love is never dead.
Love is alive.
