Misconceptions

We are taught from an early age that love is a necessity for all human beings

To children love is sharing their Halloween candy because mommy couldn’t go trick-or-treating this year because her coughing has started to collapse her lungs.
Or playing a game of soccer in the backyard with their father.
Or making sure to save a cookie for their big brother when he gets home from practice.

To teenagers’ love is a disease, something to fear.
Or simply it’s giving themselves to their significant other in ways their parents advised against.
Or it is following an ill-mannered boy across the world because he promised from the beginning they would live happily ever after.

To adults’ love is watching their first-born child fumble around the living-room on their fawn legs.
Or watching a romantic comedy instead of the new action movie that just came to theatres
Or making their partners favorite meal after the worst day at work.

But, somewhere down the line, a misconception of love emerged.
Young people have developed the idea that love is staying beside somebody even if their love morphs into cruel words that slip from a drunken tongue.

Children, love is not listening to parents break lamps as you cry in your room.
Love is not throwing rocks at the pretty girl at recess and “accidentally” causing her to need three stitches on her right eyebrow and a new pair of pink glasses.
Love is not relatives that slip into the room with you after dark and hide in your sheets.

Teenagers, love is not placing yourself in the hands of a clumsy 17-year-old you met at a friend’s party.
Love is not giving up your future because of an empty promise.
Love is not bringing an end to your smile because the one you fell in love with decided they prefer blonde haired girls with round lips over your auburn curls and gentle eyes.

Adults, love is not fearing the moment your spouse is to come home because you don’t know if you will live to see morning.
Love is not bruising on ribcages caused by lies conjured in your lover’s mind because they took one too many pills.
Love is not forcing your children to move schools for the third time in a year because you finally think you’ve found Mr. Right.

Love is a glorious feeling that starts in our bones and flows out through our veins like flowers blooming in the Spring.