The Love Challenge

For many people, love can mean different things. The dictionary defines love as a
profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person, but often times it is a feeling that cannot truly be put into words. It’s the reason actors utter declarations to audiences stuck on the edge of their seats. It’s the reason author doctors are page after page riddled with symbolic rationalizations. It keeps the tongues of poets wet with melodious wordplay. It creates life.

The first form of love people are exposed to is familial. Whether they are learned the power of skin-to-skin contact or only taught what not to say, children are heavily susceptible to any form of raw emotion. When they are born, they know nothing. Bubbles and sounds send them into fits of giggles that tug at heartstrings. As a parent, it should fill you with ecstasy to weave those heartstrings into jumpers and swaddles and those teeny-tiny socks that will keep your baby cozy as they grow into toddlers who will pursue life with reckless abandon.

The next form of love you encounter is platonic. After your mother has shoved you into the world, full of wonder and hope, you try to find people you see yourself in. Maybe you both wear glasses or like the color orange. Maybe you both get teased for your birthmarks. Maybe they gave your half of their afterschool snack. Whatever the reason, you find yourself getting comfortable with people outside of your nuclear family. Then one day, you two are sitting outside laughing so hard that your sides hurt and you seem to have inhaled all the air in the world, and you look over at them and think that you could do this forever.

Then you go on to develop your first crush. It’s Valentine’s Day in the 2010s and your homeroom has a haze of smartie smoke and pixie sticks in the air. There’s a card on your desk that you stayed up past your bedtime to make for your crush. You lock eyes but their stare seems to burn holes in your hand and the card feels like a ton of bricks in for fingers. You can feel your heart rattling in your chest. You swallow your nerves and cross the room, a card tucked behind your back and a phony grin plastered across your face, praying that they like you too.

Then love becomes physical and kissing feels like both the end of the world and the beginning of a new one. You talk to your equally inexperienced friends like you all can seduce Aphrodite with the wink of an eye. You are at a birthday party and your friend dares you to kiss the person they think you like. Part of you wants to punch them in the arm so hard it welts, but the other part of you wants to shake their hand like you just secured the business deal of the century. You walk up to your crush and make your proposal, but your whisper is low and your throat is dry so they don’t hear you. But do not be discouraged by this because before you can think, your friend will already have shouted the dare over your shoulder. You face your crush, heels locked and ripe with red cheeks. They grab your hand and as you duck off into a dim hallway, you can feel your heart sinking with each step.

As we grow older, we forget about childhood love. We forget how inexperienced yet eager we were. We forget reckless abandon. This Valentines Day, I challenge you to love something the way you would have in your adolescence, hesitant but relentless in your endeavor.

Danielle Miller is a freshman contributor to 101 Magazine.