Like most little girls, I grew up watching movies about princesses falling in love with fabricated concepts of handsome men, dressing up in what I thought were beautiful, long, sparkly dresses and applying way too much make up while sitting at my Fisher Price plastic vanity. I remember watching movies about love and constructing a perception that love was something magical, and “happily ever afters” were something that were always not only expected, but something that was somewhat implied.

I remember the first time I saw you. We were 10-years-old, getting ready for our first peewee football game of the season. You were huddled up with the rest of the sweaty boys and I was standing off to the side with the rest of the cheerleaders giggling and eating the last bit of candy we could get our hands on before the game started. As you walked by to go on the field, I remember we awkwardly stared at each other, but it didn’t take long for your coach to yell, “Stop looking at the cheerleaders. That’s not what we are here for.” My diary was soon filled with doodles of your name and misspelled expressions of infatuation I had for you even back then.

Years passed and our paths didn’t cross again until my freshman year of high school when you awkwardly walked up to me as I stood there shaking, not really knowing what to say as I looked up at you as you asked me if you could walk me to class. Looking back now, it’s amazing to see how love came so unexpectedly, powerfully and passionately, consistently and continually over the span of the next four years. Love came over years of texting on our cool razor phones, getting in trouble for being late to class again because we spent too much time talking in the halls, being each other’s number one top friend on MySpace and driving around until our parents would call us angrily because we were late and missing curfew yet again… Love came through a lot of tears, mistakes, sorrows, insecurities and fears. Yet against all odds, we were able to persevere.

Over the years our relationship was nowhere near perfect, but we were consistently perfect imperfectly together. I loved the way you were always down for an adventure no matter how big or how small it was. I loved the way I could always depend on you to show up and accept me for who I was when nobody else could be found. I loved every single one of our two-hour phone conversations that inevitably ended with you falling asleep on me. I loved the way you were at every dance recital, family event and monumental milestone I can honestly remember. Most importantly I loved how over the years I never once had to wonder what real life love felt like.

Although all of this might sound perfect on paper, you and I both know it was actually far from that. As high school came to an end, so did we. I remember standing outside of your parents house as we put the last box of stuff in your truck for you to leave for college, looking into your eyes with a heavy heart hoping you would say anything to make me feel like this wasn’t the end, but you didn’t. After years of giving everything we had to travel down the same path, we were at our fork in the road.

I spent the next several years fumbling around aiming to put all the pieces back together and make sense of at all. The older I got and more I was exposed to the not so beautifully written and magical parts of life, the more I began to grow into a skeptic. I found myself being the type of person who made fun of love songs, romantic gestures and the idea that there was such thing as a love that can last a lifetime in this day and age. I began to associate love with being let down and focused more on finding temporary distractions than positive holistic actions.

I grew up, made mistakes, experienced failure, loss, loneliness and tragedy. I built up walls, altered my views of love and even began to expect heartache versus heartfelt triumphs within relationships. I compared everyone to you and always managed to find an excuse to run anytime anyone got too close. Time and time again I let people down and hated myself a little more each and every time I hurt someone by not loving them the way that they deserved.

Over time, I found myself falling in love with just being alone. To me, nothing could beat curling up with a good book on a rainy day, or spending the weekend exploring a lively city. I got comfortable traveling alone, showing up at family events alone and answering the repetitive question, “Are you seeing anyone,” with the same unenthusiastic “No.” I learned how to fully love myself for who I was and managed to teach myself how to find happiness without relying on anyone else to give it to me.

It didn’t take you long after we broke up to realize that I was what you wanted and you were willing to do anything you could to prove that to me. You were patient, understanding and somehow managed to love me with all that you had even in the moments I was struggling to love myself. After years of running away and fighting all the feelings I had towards you, I gave in. I gave into the idea that there is such thing in a love so powerful it can overcome the impossible. I gave into the idea that love is not something easy and often takes a lot of tears, trials, mistakes, and misfortunes to get to the point where you both want to be and even then it is still not perfect. I gave into the idea that by loving another person fully, you are giving them all the ammo they need to completely destroy you, but trusting them with all that you have that they won’t.

You have changed me on such a deep level over all these years that I honestly will never be able to find the words to thank you. You started teaching me what love was when we were 14 and you consistently teach me what love is almost 10 years later. Nobody can make me as happy, as angry, as silly or feel as safe as you can. You have identified my walls and have slowly but surly knocked them down. You have grown up, shown up and owned up without hesitation or any expectation. You have been my best friend, role model, accomplice, confidant and my greatest challenge. Your love has made me a better person and has been a reflection of my biggest legacy-- resilient, passionate and unwavering.

The point of this blog is not to be super cheesy or to share all the details of my relationship with the rest of the world, yet the goal of this is to encourage anyone out there who has also let the “happily ever after” perfect illusion of love negatively affect the way you see it. Love is something magical and something that we often spend our whole lives trying to understand yet is also something that takes continuous and conscious effort and often times comes along with a great deal of heartbreak.

In Japan they have developed a concept that has now been incorporated into the lives of people all around the world and I feel it beautifully sums up what we should all expect when it comes to love. Wabi Sabi is the idea that promotes people to focus on finding the beauty within the imperfections of life while accepting the natural process of growth and decay. I believe this complex belief can begin to separate ourselves from these 21-century fabricated notions that love is always perfect and promote us to see love for what it is, which is not finding a perfect person but by seeing a imperfect person perfectly.

People will always let you down, hurt you, leave you and possibly make you not only question if it is worth it but possibly even make you question yourself. I want to encourage all of you to seek love, to give it freely and to have the courage to stand back up after love knocks you down. Love is not perfect and it never will be but it will always be worth it in the end. We are all in control of writing our own stories and it is up to us to find our own not so happily ever after.