The heart wants what the heart wants

I've never quite understood the notion of love. I've been told it's because I haven't found the 'love of my life' yet, that the 'right person' hasn't come along. But really, how do you realistically believe in happily-ever-afters and 'one true love'? I mean why is finding "the other half" so important? Why is it that you're only whole when you're together with someone else? What is this concept of bliss that dictates we must have a significant other to be truly happy?

I remember getting real pissed and confused when I was told "you should look for a boyfriend now while you're still in college, if not it'll be very difficult to find someone when you're working". Why do people assume that having a better half is a benchmark of a person's worth? Am I less of an intellectual, less of a woman, less capable without a partner? Why does it still essentially boil down to "why do you still not have a boyfriend?" despite attaining financial stability, exceptional career growth and being emotionally happiness all at the same time? What is this measure of one's capability and happiness against relationship status that is constantly making us feel bad about ourselves? Is this why 30 year olds are all rushing into marriage because the ticking time bomb of societal pressures are too hard to bear?

Don't get me wrong, I love love. I love seeing two people being happy together, boy I teared up during Sheldon's wedding vows (go watch the big bang theory y'all) and grinned like an idiot the entire time while watching kimi ni todoke. It's people that I don't believe in. I don't believe that anyone would willingly stay with you till the very end. I don't believe that anyone has that capacity, the capability to love the same person for 50 long years. I don't believe in the sweet promises of happily ever afters. I realised, feelings are intangible, perishable and transferable yet overwhelming, uncontrollable and unpredictable. So pure and so raw yet so tainted and so bleak. How do you know that you're truly in love? Is it that tingling feeling when they first held your hands? Or is it that flutter in your heart when they look into your eyes?

I think, at the end of the day, no one truly knows how love works. You get to decide if you're willing to risk it all just for that one person. They might make or break you but that's the person you're willing to bet your everything on. They might wake up tomorrow morning and decide that you're no longer worthy anymore but that's the person you're still willing to fight another day for. You know, I may never have the chance to experience this because I'm so unwilling to put my raw, tender heart in someone else's hands and that's quite okay. But who knows one day, I may find that someone who I'm more than willing to say yes to and well, that's okay too. So stop labelling, stop putting us all in a box. Happiness comes from within and it is from within that is genuine. The heart wants what the heart wants, or rather, the heart doesn't want what it doesn't want. Who's to say no to that?

xoxo,

Wendy