[Guest Post] Love Is Hard (A Sequel) by Abby H. '20

Continued reflections on love at the Institvte (and really just love irl) from the guy who wrote THIS seven months ago. Enjoy :)

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So last time I poured out all that I had in my brain regarding my trials and tribulations with dating, which includes the many times I have felt like I was in love and similarly the many times that I was wrong. Have I gained an ounce of sanity? Not really. Will I continue to obsess over any boy I find remotely interesting? Most likely. Am I still, deep down, hoping that my life will unfold like a romantic drama where a stranger suddenly appears in my life and we fall in love and live a long, happy life together? Obviously.

But I have discovered that after a relationship ends, you tend to look back on your experience and think about the specific time when things went wrong, and you think about when you should’ve realized that you “weren’t really in love.”

I repeated this many times in my other post; I describe the multiple times when I thought that I was in love, only for things to inevitably fade away in the end.

However, these past semesters have been quite a transformative experience for me; (maybe just because I’ve taken a linguistics class and so now my brain is always in analyze-those-words-mode, but aside from that) I’ve spent many nights thinking about love and thinking about what love means to me.

“What am I looking for? What/who would make me happy? What do I want in a relationship?”

And although the answer to these questions could simply be the name of any good-looking, financially-stable male celebrity, I’ve spent a good chunk of time pondering my idea of love.

For me, love is many things.

It’s when seeing each other on campus brings a smile to your face that you can’t hold back.

It’s when you lose track of time talking to each other because you’re too focused on the words flying between you.

But at the same time it’s when silence feels just as good because you really just crave their company.

It’s the feeling of their hand in yours and never wanting to let go. And tracing the lines that seem to so delicately run down their arms.

Love is when you’re with someone and feel no desire to leave. You wake up with them and the thought of getting out of bed makes you feel cozier than you’ve ever felt before.

Love is when a certain smell suddenly starts to warm your heart in a way it never used to, and you yearn to be engulfed in it once again.
It’s something words can’t properly describe in full, but I’m sure you’re imagining a similar feeling in your chest to the one I am.

And on the other hand love can be painful.

It’s when the thought of them finding someone else feels like the heaviest weight on your chest imaginable.

Or the ache you feel when the space on your bed suddenly doubles in size.

It’s when a song somehow perfectly captures your emotions and forces you to reminisce on the love you used to have.

Or when a picture makes you want to climb into that moment and somehow relive it just one more time.

And even though you know better, this side of love seems to stick around longer than you want it to.

No matter what you call love, at the end of the day it’s an abstract concept that I don’t think anyone can describe completely in a finite amount of words. And love is felt differently by everyone. It is a feeling that is best described using times that you’ve felt some emotion you call “love”.

So for now I’m not sure if I’m striving to find love. But I know that I’ve shared moments with people that have made me felt ways I can’t possibly describe in words as well as I’d like to.

And I want more of those moments.