Love is something attainable

Abby Waechter | Managing Editor

What is love?

Someone told me that they loved me, and I didn’t say it
back. Why do we think that love is something we just know is
there?

What do any of us know about love and how do we know that we mean it? My parents tell each other every day that they love each other, and they’ve been happily married for over eighteen years. Do they truly mean it every time they mouth the phrase?

Love is something that, in my eyes, is earned- through time,
trust, and truth.

When I was with my ex-boyfriend, I thought that love was a fake sort of Snapchat relationship, hidden behind filters and flirtatious interactions. I thought that I loved him because I just wanted to say three words to his face. Love is an awe-inspiring, everlasting, feeling of patience and kindness towards those you care for.

As a high schooler, who has ever-changing ideas of what they’re going to do after graduation, I don’t think that we have the capacity to grasp the qualities of an everlasting flame that “inspires.”

Love to me, right now, is simply a partnership, bound to end with summer’s cusp. Saying “I love you” is a lie that I don’t think I can live up to.

But I’m willing to try.

Typically high schoolers say, and have said, “I hate February.” February marks the beginning of the month dedicated to lust, desire, intimacy, warmth, and love; all qualities that we typically tend to shy away from.

But we’re only here for so long so why not play into capital-
ism’s palm.

I’m going to give “love” my best shot.

It’s time to experiment, to encounter feelings we haven’t felt before, to learn what love is and what it is not. So, within this “month of love,” instead of cringing at the sight of pink and red and white let’s appreciate the love in the world around us. Let’s use it as an opportunity to realize just how attainable love can be.

So, this February, I’m going to fling myself out of my comfort zone, out of the “relationships are temporary” mindset, and into the one where I give them all of myself— to try and achieve this definition of “true love.”