Love is such an odd sort of thing.

This is about to be recklessly cliché, I already know. My apologies in advance. Please do not read any further if you are not interested in my thoughts on love.

Here's the thing: relationships are kind of weird. And we millennials tend to cycle through them as quickly as humanly possible all while wondering what we are doing wrong. And I guess there is a variety of answers, none of which I can really state for certain for anyone but myself. We're young, we're testing the waters to see who and what will make us whole. Most of the time we simply assume that we are the only thing that could possibly fill the voids that we feel within so we tune the rest out, sometimes allowing for temporary placement of people within our lives but often kicking them to the curb as soon as they get too close. We have fallen into an odd pattern where relationships mean very little at this point in our lives. We tend to let them dissolve into a meaningless mess because they all but begin that way. People are fickle and only want what is best for themselves a majority of the time and, as bad as that sounds, we have to be wary of that fact.

Sometimes you see the pieces of your life in the rear view mirror and recognize why they never fell into place. Hindsight is 20/20, after all. Maybe the saying "everything happens for a reason" means nothing but bullshit to you but it has got to hold a little bit of truth in some way. How else can you make sense of the craziness of the world around us?

In hindsight, I knew most of the relationships that I have been in were more than likely never going to go anywhere. Every single one had some kind of issue: typically, me. More often than not, it all came back to my fear of committing myself to anything long-term or serious. But I didn't begin that way. I just went through the process that most people go through, I suppose, the one that rips your heart out again and again as you fall for different people, become attached, and watch them leave once everything is said and done.

I certainly had my share of teenage relationships (both juvenile and serious) and the drama that goes hand in hand with it. I went all gooey-eyed over boys that I knew I would never have a chance with. Being the idiotically rebellious young woman that I am, I've always had a thing for the "bad boy" type, the ones I knew would never so much as look in my direction and had zero good intentions. You know that line from the The Arctic Monkeys song "No.1 Party Anthem" that goes "It's not like I'm falling in love, I just want you to do me no good, And you look like you could"? Yeah, hi, that is me.

In any case, I was a typical teenage girl, getting her heart broken left and right and feeling as though the world had plummeted into another dimension because someone who doesn't even know I exist has yet to so much as notice that I even go to the same school as them or that I incessantly stalked their Facebook profile and was waiting for them to casually message me someday (tragic, I know). I've found that it is much too easy to fall into a cycle of cynicism as I blame all of my failed luck on relationships in general. Why blame yourself when you can blame something else?

And let's be real here, relationships are terrifying. Putting your trust in someone is not exactly the easiest thing to do. I know that. I've been there. It is incredibly hard to actually verify the intentions of another person until you've spent time together and allowed one another to see the real "you". Unfortunately, people are not always who they seem to be in the beginning. The boys that I thought were "the one" have all ended up being people I do not exactly relish in associating with anymore (lol semi-petty shout out to you if you're reading this).

So you close yourself off. You become all kinds of cynical, stating that you are never going to try for a relationship again and swear off all the drama that is dating. Whether or not this tactic works is up to how you are as a person, I suppose. It worked for me for a little while. I figured it was just easier to completely cut boys off and be me for a while, which was nice and all but nigh on impossible in all reality. But, then again, you never really expect to fall in love with your best friend. That tends to take you by surprise.

The point is, why spend your whole life allowing yourself to stew over what is in the past? Why ruin your perception of love and happiness? It is incredibly easy to convince ourselves that we are going to be "forever alone" and that no one will make us happy ever again. It is even easier to convince ourselves that we are the only one that we need. And I guess that is something we need in some sense. You need to know that you will be just fine as yourself, that no one can make or break your worth. You matter whether or not you have a significant other to reassure you. And sometimes we go into relationships all wrong, wanting to find that worth and assuming it will make us feel whole again, an assumption that usually lets us down and leaves us with a bad taste in our mouths that lingers for months as we attempt to get over the mess we've just made of ourselves once again. Jumping in is much too easy: a fact that we don't want to admit to ourselves when we do it, but ultimately are always aware of. But giving yourself time to find something real.... holy wow is that a great feeling...

It's funny, you never really think you'll ever feel something so strong until you've found yourself in a brand new place, eyes open for what seems like the very first time.

You catch yourself smiling at everything a lot more. Like the world has just now become so much nicer, so much lighter and exciting. It's like every sense becomes vibrantly alive. The food you consume tastes so much better, your vision is clear and bright, everything seems to fall into place around you. Relationships can be sappy like that. You spend a majority of your time with your significant other, if not with them then incessantly talking to or thinking about them. It's like every other failed relationship makes sense now because this one feels so right.

When people ask me about him all I can really say is "yeah, he's great." Rather anti-climactic, I'm sure. But he is. He is so great. For the first time I don't feel so out of depth. It's like being able to breathe, the air feels pretty fantastic in my lungs. He makes me better as a person, constantly pushing me to do what makes me happy and incorporating me into his life as I incorporate him into mine. He is the constant that keeps me grounded even when I feel as though the world has come crashing down around me. My fear of commitment has diminished in so many ways because of how steadfastly in sync he is with me. And I guess that is really what relationships are, becoming in sync with another person, partners in life that support each other in any way possible. I could go on for days, he's just really great. And I just really love him.

So there you have it, some Emily thoughts on love and relationships in accordance to personal experience and a shameless article about how amazingly great my boyfriend is, as per usual. Aren't you glad you kept reading?

In case you were wondering, I've got South Pacific constantly running through my mind as the track "I'm in love with a wonderful guy" plays on repeat.

I'm on cloud nine, my friends, and I never want to come back down.

Love is such an odd sort of thing.