I still believe in true love, I still believe in Happily Ever After, and I still believe in forever. Life is full of moments strung together with heartache and joy and that alone makes it possible for me to avoid getting cynical. God has blessed me with such a wide range of emotions and I would be foolish to not appreciate and accept that. I’ve learned many things over the last 2 years but I think the most important is that I learned that I have a huge capacity for love. When I love I give it all, I am devoted and determined.

Determined seems like a strange word to use when describing love but I think it fits perfectly. Love is hard and can be a battle at times, even the strongest relationships go through moments of weakness. So I think it’s important to stay determined, determined to make it work because that other person is just it for you. They are the reason you wake up with a smile on your face and the person you think about even in the mundane moments like when you’re brushing your teeth. Unfortunately I fell in love with someone who wasn’t as determined as I, and I can’t fault him for that.

Love is beautiful when it happens naturally. And I think it should be celebrated when you’re lucky enough to experience it and I was. A whisper in my ear was like falling asleep in a warm bed with the rain falling down on the roof. Seeing their name pop up on on the screen of my phone left me with a giddy feeling. Giddy is not a word I ever used before falling in love. Even though the smiles in my relationship faded over the last few months into tight-lipped, annoying glances I still remember the smile that was reserved for just me at the beginning. I don’t linger too long on those memories now because everyone knows it can’t last forever the moment you start wishing for the beginning again.

Wishing that something never happened is pointless and will cause me more frustration and heartache because there just isn’t any going back. I’ve never thought about the movie, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ so much until now, but it fits so perfectly. In moments of pain you want to do anything to erase all those memories so you can just move on but that’s not the way it will ever work. My brain is looking out for me, protecting me from another possible mistake, my brain is the big brother to it’s little sister the heart and it will do anything, including show me a particularly painful memory, just to keep my heart from completely shattering again.

So now I still look forward to the next time I trip headfirst into love and I keep hope that the next time it will be forever.