Love.

Love.                                  Julia Ali

If you have never been in love it must almost seem archaic. Thinking about your partner nonstop, always wanting to be with them and not seeing all the bad that they might have done to you. If you asked a hundred different people to describe love you would get a hundred different answers. Love is one of the most confusing feelings, because it cannot be described. It’s not something you can explain to someone in words; it’s not something that can just be given a definition. People who love science and love to have all the answers must hate the concept of love because it is the one thing that cannot be answered. Love is not scientific it doesn’t have a chemical balance or equation. It’s different for every person and every person has their own opinion about it. You may ask a young eleven year old girl what love is and she might say something along the lines of a man and women being together forever getting married and having children.  I might ask a man who is newly divorced and he might say something like, love is pain, love is dangerous and I pray for the people that are in love as we speak. An old man who might’ve just lost his wife after 30 years of marriage might say something like, love is indescribable its knowing that that person will always be there for you, it is the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced and if I had to do my life over again I would fall in love with my wife a thousand more times. Can any of these responses be deemed as wrong? No. Because love isn’t textbook it is a personal experience, an observation, a feeling every little feeling crammed into one. The feeling of joy, sadness, loss, confusion, anger. It has not one emotion but thousands and that’s what makes it so unique.

                My love story isn’t one you would find in a children’s book, and I doubt its one that I would share to my kids in the future but it is one that I will never forget. It all started as most love stories do with a young girl seeing a boy for the first time and thinking oh hes cute. I was naïve at the time and thought that nothing could hurt me especially not a guy but boy was I wrong, cause no person has hurt me more. It was the start of a new school year and I had just turned 16, I entered my first period and sat with a group of my friends with no care in the world except if my outfit showed enough skin or not. Months had passed and I had my far share of using and abusing boys. It was my speciality see, seeing a boy getting him to fall for me, get what I wanted and then leave them never speaking to them again and making it seem like I haven’t done anything wrong. The worst part wasn’t what I was doing but the fact that I was proud of myself, I was proud of being able to conquer a guy and make him fall for me. It was all a game to me, love wasn’t something I had ever felt and I wasn’t scared of getting my heart broken because I never let myself get that far with a guy, I would always dump them before I started developing real feelings for them.  It was the beginning of the new quarter and as usual that meant that the teacher would assign new assigned seats. I was dreading this as I wanted sit with my friends and not with people I didn’t know or like. As she called my name and I took my seat it felt as though hours had gone by before she called the name of the person who was going to sit next to me. “Elias Hakim” she called I looked up to see who was going to be sitting next to me since I have never heard this name before so I obviously had no idea who this kid was. I looked up and was met with the most beautiful emrald green eyes I have ever seen he was wearing a red sweatshirt (which I later realized was his “Signature” sweatshirt) and khaki shorts. He said nothing to me as he sat down and neither did I as I was now brainstorming how I was going to make him fall in love with me and then break his heart.

                Our relationship wasn’t like all the rest that I had it was different. I actually wanted to spend time with him and cared about what he thought of me. I was falling in love but I didn’t know it at the time. I was just a clueless girl playing a stupid game. Months had passed and we were still together, my longest relationship actually. It was the week of my 17^th birthday and things were becoming weird. I felt as though he never wanted to spend time with me because he would always choose hanging out with the guys over hanging out with me. I wasn’t his first priority and that was something new for me because I was always a guy’s first priority and there were always my last not the other way around. I knew the day was coming where he was going to break up with me so I figured I would break up with him first to make it seem like I didn’t care about him which at the time I didn’t think I did but looking back now I realize I cared too much. We ended up breaking up and I actually felt good about it I wasn’t hurt and I felt fine.  Months passed and I couldn’t get myself to stop thinking about him all I wanted to do was get back together with him and go back to the way we were. But in the time that we were broken up he had changed. He was no longer the dorky, quiet guy I had fallen in love with. He started partying, drinking, and hooking up with girls. I was devastated to hear about all the girls he was getting with especially since I hadn’t been talking to any new guys since him and I broke up. Every once in a while he would “drunk text me” or text me something rude and I would I would either not reply or reply something harsh back. One day he had drunk texted me something and the next morning had texted  back saying he was sorry for the earlier message. I decided that day that I needed to talk to him so I replied and we had a conversation. We decided to meet up that day and hangout I tried to make myself not think about him in that way, the whole time saying “you don’t like him, you don’t like him” in my head. The night had reached an end and I was proud of myself for not falling for him again. That’s until he told me how much he missed me and how he wanted to be with me again. I was in utter shock he leaned in to kiss me but I told him I couldn’t and that I needed time to think. I got out of the car and immediately everything that I had been telling myself the last few months about not caring about him I knew was a lie and I knew that I still loved him.

                We eventually ended up getting back together and this time I fell even more in love with him and I couldn’t stop myself. He was everything I wanted and more. He made my heart hurt in the best way possible, when I was not with him I was thinking about him and when I was with him I was dreading going back home. All I wanted was him but our pride got in the way once again as our relationship was built on a power struggle and a competition. I see know that our relationship was never healthy it was toxic actually. The statement love is blind couldn’t have been more accurate in this situation. He had changed for the worse caring less about our relationship and ignoring me for days on end. But I didn’t care because I was so madly in love with him I didn’t even notice what was going on. One day though I knew I couldn’t take it anymore and I needed to stand up for myself and so I asked him to meet up. We sat in his car both in silence not knowing what to say. I ended up saying it wasn’t working and with him going away for school and me staying here it would be best just to break up. All I wanted was for him to fight for me and say that he wanted me and that we could work it out all I wanted was for him to show me he cared. I didn’t even want to break up I just wanted to know he still cared. But he didn’t, as he agreed and I left the car. I got in my car and drove I didn’t know where I was going until I ended up at my bestfriends house I knocked on the door and walked in. She asked me what happened and embraced me in a hug and right there in her arms I cried harder than I have ever cried before. I had lost him, the only guy that I have ever loved, the only guy that had actually made me feel. He was gone and I knew this time it was for good. It was over.

                The next few months are a blur. I spent most of my time at home in my bed contemplating everything. I reached a dark place in my life not only was my heart broken but I was also broken. My heart hurt and my body ached and nothing could numb the pain. Every night I would lie in bed and just bawl my eyes out screaming into my pillow. In those few months I had lost myself I didn’t even know who I was anymore. I started smoking occasionally with a few of my friends and it made me happy. It numbed me and it numbed the pain I no longer felt sad I just felt happy. And I had missed that feeling of happiness. For a while I couldn’t stop I would smoke every single day just to get rid of the pain I felt but as good as smoking made me feel that feeling didn’t last forever. Once I would get home from a long day of smoking and doing nothing productive I would lie in bed and the depression would creep over me once again and there was nothing I could do to stop it.  I tried to push the thoughts out of my head but I couldn’t they kept coming back. My insides hurt so bad and I just wanted it to go away I would do anything to make it go away. One day I went too far. I picked up the sharp razor and placed it against my skin. I pushed deep into my flesh and it felt so good. I don’t know why it helped or how it helped but I after then I couldn’t stop. I craved it because I craved feeling, feeling anything other than heartbreak. I just wanted to be in control for once I wanted to be in control of my body. My body was so numb to pain at that point that when I did it, when I digged into my skin with a sharp edged blade I felt nothing. All I felt was my heart breaking even more. Those few months of depression were the hardest months of my life, not because of getting my heartbroken but because of what it did to me. It made me lose myself completely I didn’t even know how to act or who to be anymore. I don’t know if it was for the better or the worse but I have never been in the same. My first love changed the person I am today.

                I did get out of that depression stage eventually and am finally happy again. I found a new me and couldn’t be happier about that. I do, I do still sometimes think about him and all the memories we had, because they were some of the best moments of my life, the moments I was in love. In a way I will always love him and even though sometimes it still hurts I wouldn’t take it back because that experience taught me so much and made me a stronger person. I don’t blame him for anything that happened but instead I thank him for proving to me that love is possible. And love is worth it.