“Before I met him, I would dance in the shower. When he was in my life, I would think about showering with him. After he left, I would sit on the ground in the shower and cry. When I got over him, I showered so quickly there was no time for dancing, fantasies or tears. Someone can invade the smallest parts of your life, you won’t even realize it until you dance in the shower again, and wonder why you ever stopped.” -Anonymous 

I catch myself in the heat of a joke, smiling at the ones around me. In particular, my best friend and former roommate catches my eye. She’s looking at me, and not in a bad way. She’s staring at my blank expression because she knows I have just realized something big.

At a given moment, I’ve caught myself truly living in the present. I pull away from my conversation and think to myself, “wow, this moment in itself is about to pass me by, but I am so fortunate to be able to share it”. That night I had found myself about three drinks deep and about three years back in memories. I put my glass to my lips only to come to the conclusion that I needed to talk about something which has been clawing at the back of my mind for years. The topic had been hot that night between my girlfriend and I. Over the past three years, we had struggled through some of the hardest parts of our lives together. When you go through something so astoundingly life altering with another human being, your bond is sealed forever. And that night, the topic was the elephant in the room, making us both feel extremely vulnerable. That topic was love.

I remember standing along the shore some years ago. Impaired and vulnerable just like this evening. I uttered one sentence which would haunt me for a lifetime. “What if this is as good as it gets?”. And maybe that was as good as it was going to get. Witnessing so many different love stories through my peers, friends, even my parents gives me the idea of what love is: sacrifice. Many times I have found myself leaving relationships behind because it was easy. Many a time I have found myself alone because it was too much work to keep me. So riddle me this: What does it actually take to be successful in love?

The most beautiful love stories are those which have endured sacrifice, pain, and suffering, which fought in order to keep the ones they love within their grasp. Love is worth it, and I think a lot of times we don’t understand that until it’s too late. So what if this is as good as it gets? Keep your life in a way which brings you happiness and excitement, because this might be the only moment we have to share with the one we love.

On my fourth drink I push back my hair, heated from my buzz but also because of my incompetence to accept love into my life, due to one situation. Subconsciously, there are walls so high built up on hurt, fear, insecurity that maybe they don’t feel the same, that maybe I don’t deserve something so good twice. Maybe this won’t be as amazing as that moment on the shore with familiar hands around my waist…

With doubt tugging at my throat, I turn to my friend, who demands my eyes and says, “you need to give it a chance”. And in this moment I realize it’s going to pass me by, I’m going to make the decision to give myself another chance. Opening yourself up to something which can potentially ruin you again is the scariest thing in the world, but so is thinking a moment at sixteen is as good as it’s going to get.