Does love exist or is it just a fairy tale?
From a first kiss on the playground in kindergarten to the binding one at the altar, love means something different to everybody. Many people fall in love various times throughout their lives with multiple people, and others never know the true feeling of being in love and the vulnerability that comes along with it. Is that because love does not exist – or is it just because some do not get the chance to experience it?
To some, love is walking by a shopping centre and seeing shoes in the window and uttering the words “I’m in love.” To others, love is the butterflies one gets when they know that they have met the person they are going to spend the rest of their life with. It is quite difficult to justify whether love truly does exist because of the many different definitions and feelings associated with it.
Many can recognize the feelings of heartbreak, often associated with the image of someone spending a Friday night curled up on the couch covered in tears and staring into an empty tub of ice cream, but it is difficult to describe the feelings that lead to the heartbreak. Love is often described an “inexplicable feeling,” which I believe to be true. Nobody can truly explain what love feels like because it is a multitude of emotions that are experienced differently for everyone.
In my opinion, love does exist if one allows it to. It is a matter of being open and understanding of the roller coaster of feelings that follow the words “I love you.” Movies and television shows seem to use the three little words so loosely and dramatize it as a way to reign in ratings, but this creates an unattainable goal of what love is and what it should feel like. Just because your favourite character on a television series has a crazy relationship that leaves you gasping at the end of an episode, does not mean that love in the real world will have the same effect.
Love can be the comfort brought to you by your family members or close friends, and how lucky you feel to have them in your life. Love can be the tongue tied words and a warm heart felt when spending time with someone. Love can also be screaming at someone until three in the morning and feeling like nothing has been accomplished.
Love varies from person to person, but I believe that everyone is able to love and that love does exist for everyone – some may just be closed off to realizing it.
In my opinion, love is used too casually in today’s society, on things such as the restaurant down the street or the new dress in your closet – but the sacred words seem to be scarcely said to the ones who long to hear it most. Love cannot be reduced to a single feeling, but it is something that one just “knows” when it is happening, and something that does exist outside of the “once upon a time” in fairytales.