Alida

I am a self-proclaimed lover girl, a hopeless romantic, and my friends would probably describe me the same way. It is perhaps my greatest strength and, at times, my greatest weakness.

To wear your heart on your sleeve is to feel more deeply, to experience more intensely. There is a certain bravery in allowing yourself to love openly, in putting your vulnerability and heart into someone else’s hands without knowing exactly what they will do with it. Only to trust them. To set yourself up for the possibility of complete heartbreak.

But I will always believe that being in love, feeling love, and having the courage to put your heart out into the world are among the most beautiful and fundamental parts of being human.

The one who loves always wins.

There is something extraordinary about being completely engulfed by another person. About discovering the beauty in them. To get to know what makes them them, the small intricacies that make them who they are, and to love them in a way you have never loved anyone before. I truly believe we love every person differently. No two relationships can ever be replicated because each is built from its own language and its own little world.

To love someone makes your life fuller. To see the world, even briefly, through someone else’s eyes enriches your own. And love is not entirely selfish, either. Your willingness to love, to show affection, tenderness, devotion, and vulnerability, is something you give to another person and, (maybe even in the smallest way), something you give to the world.

Love is never wasted. It is not finite. And the world could only use more of it.

And I do apologize that this is the hopeless romantic in me speaking, because unfortunately, there is also the heartbreak side of it all.

For as beautiful and ecstatic it can feel to be in love, it is equally horrific to have that love taken away. There is almost something ironic about it: How can something that brought you so much joy become the source of so much grief?

But how do you cope with it? Should you cope with it? Is it a price worth paying?

First of all—I do believe it is a price worth paying (but I will circle back to this later)

I wish there were a more profound answer on how to cope with it, but the truest one I know is also the one nobody wants to hear: time heals all wounds.

Not according to a schedule. Not neatly. For one person, it might take weeks; for another, months or years. But the time will come when one day you are sitting and drinking your coffee, and you realize you have moved on, fully, completely.

Eventually, almost imperceptibly, life begins returning to you.

And maybe that is part of the beauty of heartbreak too. Is there not beauty in tragedy? Is that not why the Greeks were so obsessed with it?

There is something cathartic about surviving what once felt unsurvivable. Something you thought you would absolutely never be able to get through, or the person you thought you would never be able to let go of. But you did and you will again. Your heart can withstand it all. It is an ever-living, breathing, and renewing source of love.

There is beauty in love, and there is beauty in its tragedy.

Love has inspired paintings, novels, symphonies, poems, wars, films, and entire lives spent trying to capture it, understand it, preserve it, and mourn it.

Maybe that is because love itself is an art.

So yes, circling back… it is worth it. Heartbreak is. To love is. To take that risk.

It is messy, irrational, and courageous. It can be devastating and exhilarating, sometimes almost simultaneously. It makes life hurt more, certainly, but it also makes life infinitely richer.

And despite everything, I think I would rather be someone who loves too much than someone who spends her life closing herself off or is afraid to love at all.

Because I believe with complete certainty that the greatest form of art is to simply love.