on love

I always thought if I held you tightly, you would always love me like you did back then. Then I fell asleep and the city kept blinking, what was I thinking when I let you back?- Wilco (I Am Trying To Break Your Heart)
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I had my first "serious" boyfriend when I was in 8th grade. His name was Josh. We'd been good enough friends in 6-7th grades, but something about that 8th grade year made me fall head over heels. Josh and I were the "perfect" school couple: I was student body president, he was the football, track, basketball, you name it-sport star, and we starred in the school play together. How sickeningly sweet. We'd pass notes in class, and one day he wrote that he loved me. It really freaked me out, and I broke up with him for it.

Did I mention i'm kind of neurotic about that sort of thing?

We ended up going back out, and the whole time he prodded me to say "I love you" back to him, but I wouldn't do it. I was 14. What 14 year old really knows what love is? Come off it. It just seemed silly to me. Finally, I said it back- and I didn't really feel like I meant it, but to get him to leave me alone. A week later he cheated on me with this girl Brieanne, and broke my heart.

I haven't said I love you to a non-family member since then, meaning it in an all serious way, anyway.

Not to suggest that an 8th grade boyfriend cheating on me has traumatized me for life or something, but rather I've just stuck to my original belief: People throw around the word "love" an awful lot, and I wonder if it's really understood. Love is hard to describe.

I like to think love is something that occurs mutually... but that's probably not always the case. It's when you find that all the imperfections in someone, make's them perfectly imperfect just for you. When you can fight, and know that it's going to be okay- when you can sit in silence and be comfortable. When you don't have to say a word- you understand. I don't know if I've ever been in love before. Maybe I have. I like to think I have. But I guess I'll never know, now.