MEMO TO MEN: Definitions of Love.

MEMORANDUM
TO: Men all over the planet
FROM: Melissa
RE: What is love?
DATE: November 2, 2009

Oh, boys, I couldn’t help posting this photo illustration when I saw it. It immediately caught my eye. Why? Because as crazy as it sounds, I feel like that description of a bright-eyed, maybe-somewhat-naive, wants-to-conquer-the-world mentality of a teenager applies to me more at 28 years old than the description of an adult. Don’t get me wrong. I’m mature and responsible in my life and career, of course, but in the last two years, I feel like I’ve been able to breathe a new sense of fresh air again.

Does that sound incredibly insane? I know, I know. It probably sounds like another neurotic quirk of mine, but it’s a very important quirk, to say the least.

I had my adult reality for the first 21 years of my life, when my peers, as that lovely definition above shows, might have been living in that fantasy world. I, on the other hand, was living in a reality where I couldn’t throw caution to the wind, where I couldn’t dream beyond white hospital walls, where I couldn’t space out in biology class while gazing across the classroom at my crush of the week.

So maybe part of the reason I am a bit naive and whimsical about love is because I had a HUGE, heavy dose of reality all in one giant block – between my disability and 27 surgeries(which, by the way, I wouldn’t trade for anything), my sister’s own battle with depression, anorexia and bulimia and my father’s suicide – and perhaps being a little unrealistic is just what I need right now.

I’m not that naive, though. I know there are going to be people who disagree, who say this is just some lame old excuse. That’s OK. Let them talk.

Guess what? I’m not sorry for my apparent fantasy world in which I live and love. I can’t help but feel like I just did some things – lots of love things, obviously – in the reverse order that most of my peers did them in. It doesn’t make me delusional or pathetic or in need of endless hours spent discussing my dreams while sprawled out on a psychiatrist’s couch (don’t think I haven’t been there, either).

Like my mother told me over the weekend when I broached this subject with her as I sprang into the kitchen as giddy as a schoolgirl because she’d agreed to watch Twilighht with me, and I was trying to explain to her the wonders of Edward Cullen: “That’s just where you are right now.”

I suppose that’s true. Life is what it is right now, in this moment. So maybe I should just stop and, for the first time, enjoy it. For right now, I need a break, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

It may be 13 years too late, my mother also added, but it’s finally happening. And I keep finding myself excited and giddy and happy that it’s happening. I’m looking forward to what’s ahead. Isn’t that a good thing, really?

[Photo via We Heart It]