There’s been this idea that has been stuck to my soul for the past couple of days. Or rather – the idea itself has been inside me all along, but the trigger for it was just pulled when I was procrastinating on Twitter (good old social media – it’s either making me cry from laughter at cat videos or cry from sudden, soul-triggering realizations).

The post was this – someone presenting the idea that there is a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. Now, this is something I’ve been a firm believer in for as long as I can remember. Bear with me. The second part of that post was another person pointing out the fact that “I love you” means your heart holds a special connection to another – “I’m in love with you” means your heart is invested in them.

There’s the trigger.

You see – my whole life I’ve known that there is a difference between falling in love and actually being in love. People are surprised when I speak of falling in love as though it’s no big deal. And that’s because it’s not. Not to me. I fall in love all the time – with everyone and everything. I fall in love with sunsets and photographs and people – Gosh I fall in love with people. Their passion and their energies and their laughs.

I suppose I just have a lot of love inside of me, because it finds a lot of different outlets, and that four letter word comes out of my mouth a million times a day. So I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it – and if someone were to ask me “Okay, you fall in love all the time, but how do you know when you’re in love?” I would have to answer “When I fall in love with them continuously.” I can fall in love with the cute guy who makes my coffee at the café on Saturday morning because of how easygoing he is when he works, or the care he puts into every order and customer – it doesn’t mean I’m going to fall in love with him when I see him walking around campus Saturday night.

When you fall in love with someone continuously – every minute, every hour, every day, every time you see them – that’s when you haven’t gotten up from the fall. That’s when it’s going to last. Because that’s when you’re in love with them. That’s when it matters.

I’m not saying you’re going to like them all the time. There are going to be days you’ll be angry with them, or upset, or just plain annoyed – and you won’t like them very much. But you’ll still have fallen for them, and you’ll still be in love. Like and love are two different concepts – but that’s an idea for another article.

As for this concept – the falling versus the being – I know some people don’t agree with me. For some people, love is a very big word with a massive amount of meaning, and they can’t understand how I can use it so often. And that’s okay. Because another great part of love? It’s never the same. Not for two people, not for two minutes.

So for now – I’ll fall in love. With everyone. With everything. I’ll play out daydreams in my head about the guy sitting across from me on the bus, write on napkins about the life I’ve made up for the gorgeous girl in the coffee shop, and have emotional connections with the cheesecake I have at dinner (because who can’t resist falling in love with cheesecake?).

And one day – the realization will hit that someone has made me fall in love with them again, and again, and again, and that love will stick. Continuously. Completely.

But because I’ve never been good at waiting, nor at keeping my emotions in check, I’ll just have to go into that moment with the full knowledge that I’m ready to love like that. That it’s time for the long term.

I’ll already have had tons of practice.