What It Means To Fall In Love When You’ve Never Believed In It Before

At first you’ll feel like a fraud. Everything you’ve so openly and fervently scoffed at, all those loved up couples you would make fun of; now you understand them, you are one of them.

It’s all so incredibly daunting and you’re terrified. Terrified that you’re going to mess things up for yourself, for the both of you. But even though all these fears are slowly drowning you, you push through the waves of paranoia and trudge along. You’re a little bit curious, you want to see how this will go.

You begin to open up, like a flower blossoming in spring. It’s such a sight, a beautiful sight. And she, she accepts you, everything that you’ve tried to keep hidden for so long, all the sides of you. The lad you are when you’re with your friends, the man you are when you’re with your father and the boy you are when you’re with your mother. She knows all these sides of you, but mostly, she knows the person you want to be.

So you take that leap, and you fall.

You fall in love with the way the sun hits her eyes in the summer, making them a much lighter brown than they are. You fall in love with the way she wakes you up at night to hold her tighter. You fall in love with the way she pouts when you come home smelling of alcohol. Mostly, you fall in love with the way she loves you. Unconditionally, completely and in a way you’ve never been loved before.

One night, you will stand in the kitchen, crying at the idea that you would get to spend many more nights cooking dinner with her after a long day at work. It will hit you that this is probably what falling in love feels like. But this time, you’re not scared anymore. You’re excited.

You’re excited at the idea of the future, the future with her. The future you want to build with her. You’re excited that one day, you will get to be woken up every night just so you can hold her tighter.

And everything is perfect.

But one day, those fears you once had, the ones that had been hiding in the darkest corners of your mind will resurface. And suddenly you’re not so sure anymore.

You’re not sure about that future you had built together in your heads, you’re not sure you want to be woken up every night. Maybe her pout isn’t that cute after all. Maybe she loves you a little too much.

So you pull back, except this time, she notices. She talks you through it, and you feel relieved, that you don’t have to do this alone. She holds you as you cry and you tell her you don’t understand what’s happening. She doesn’t either but she tries to make sense of it all, because she hates to see you like this. But when she can’t help you, she just holds you.

But she doesn’t feel that warm anymore, she doesn’t feel like home.

And this is what it means to fall in love when you’ve never believed in it before.

Because it boils down to two choices like in every other relationship; fight or flight? But how can you fight for something that you’ve never believed in?