The Next Time I Fall in Love: A Post-Valentine’s Thing by Everyday Isa

“The next time I fall in love, I won’t actually fall. I will take my time and walk slowly towards the edge, perhaps teeter at the brink as I measure the risk, knowing full well that it’s not really about being in love with the fall – it’s about being ready for it.

I used to jump headfirst. It didn’t matter if I hit concrete as long as I could celebrate the wind in my face. It took a million broken pieces before I actually gained a deeper respect for my heart. It is the most tender part of me, the house of all my dreams and hopes. I’d be an idiot not to keep it safe. A sad, traumatized, wounded idiot. Now that I’m a bit older, I realize that I just can’t afford to be that anymore.

Being sad takes up too much time and energy. And I need something better than that. (Especially if I want to change the world.)

The next time I fall in love, I will probably be terrified. I will be an emotional mess despite the funny majority who thinks I have it all together. I will be fearful and my heart will be caught between what if this is just like the last time and no, no. this will be different. It’s the natural instinct of anyone who has watched relationships crumble in the past.

That being said, I will pack a suitcase full of courage for the journey. Because doubt is inevitable. We always question what we fear we might lose. But when that doubt starts to shake me, starts to pull me back onto the shores of Safe and Pristine, I will wear my courage like a life vest so that I can float back to where I belong: the wild.

The wild, where love grows. The wild, where roots become a beautifully tangled mess. The wild, where all things find their place.

The next time I fall in love, I will say it. I will write it all over the walls of the world, not mindlessly, but with my choicest of words. It’s not going to be the asinine ramblings of a sentimental fool. It’s going to be real; a beautiful depiction of what lives inside my heart.

It will not live as a secret like a letter shoved inside a dirty drawer. It will have wings and life and will flutter everywhere, from blank pages to bright screens. I will take my best friends out to dinner and spend an hour dissecting the many fine attribues of this love. I will write poetry, even though I don’t really know how to. I will make it known because the things that matter are always brought into the light and the next time I fall in love, it won’t be on some senseless whim. It will matter.

The next time I fall in love, I will not be afraid of the possibility of it ending. I will treat it like a miracle, not a commodity. I will hold it loosely. Not out of fear but out of sober reverence. Because, well. People die and people change and some relationships run their course. I cannot promise that the next time will be the last time – because even though I’d want it to be, who am I to make grand declarations about a future that hasn’t even begun yet? – but I can promise that I will be grateful for the privilege of loving and being loved, whatever the duration of that relationship may be. Love changes all of us and the best we can do is thank it and let it.

The next time I fall in love, it might be a cloudless summer day. Or a random evening in May. The next time I fall in love, I might quote Neruda: But I love your feet/ only because they walked upon the earth/ and upon the wind/ and upon the waters/ until they found me. Or maybe I’ll just make quasi-poetry out of my own familiar prose. The next time I fall in love, I hope to God that I’m not reduced to cheap sentiments. I hope I won’t be boxed in by all my funny expectations, I hope for far too many things and I hope, above all, that these hopes will be enough.”

Source: here

This will be me the next time I fall in love.