There is an endless amount of emotions that any given person feels. There are happy ones, but there are also upsetting ones. What is the single emotion that can give you both of those sides? Love. You see, love has the power to make or break someone completely. I am only 17-years-old, but I guess I know what love is. Sure, love is seeing your mom every day, or hugging your dog... but it's so much more than that. I never understood it until I experienced its best pal-- heartbreak.

Just like the saying everything that goes up must come down, every time you love, you will (usually) experience heartbreak. For me, it wasn't even that I was in love with this kid, I think it was that I was in love with the thought of being in love... confusing, right? I loved his presence and his demeanor. I loved his smile, his laugh, the way he looked at me. I loved the feeling of someone caring about me, I mean honestly it's the best feeling. Even though we fantasize over that, the heartbreak is what really taught me my lessons. I realized who I truly was and what I was worth. Had he not stomped on my heart, I would have thought that I deserved that and all the pain that love put me through. I learned all about what it means to truly respect yourself and fully embrace every little aspect of you that he didn't. Not only that, I learned how to binge on Netflix pretty dang well, which I still hold to be one of my greatest accomplishments.

Back to love, though. It isn't something that is just one layer. In fact, it's really endless layers and you never really unravel all of it. Love has so many dimensions to it and so many different ways that you can use it and lose it and everything in between. It was only until someone else "loved" me, that I realized it's a really beautiful thing. Granted, I am just a high schooler, and I have lots of love ahead of me (hopefully), but for today, I am content with this crazy emotion. This crazy roller coaster ride of a feeling that you really can't stop or slow down if you wanted to. It's such a fascination that I learn more and more about every day. And, like most things, its buddy heartbreak will continue to come along with it. I don't let the thought of that slow me down, because if you do, you'll miss all the beautiful things that love has to offer.