Now that I’m not in love with anyone

Now that I’m not in love with anyone, I admit there are a few perks. 

For one, less time spent talking to a boy means more time spent dancing with Claudia and Emma at Newf’s during closing time (with Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” playing and all the lights on). The dance floor clears as people scramble to order Ubers or look for their coats, but we’re in no rush. We continue dancing and twirling each other on the slippery tile, feeling weightless and completely alive (until one of us, inevitably, slips, falls and contracts a massive bruise on her back side) (a mark of a very good night).

Now that I’m not in love with anyone, I go to the bar bathroom, and I don’t check my phone once. I no longer use the bathroom trip to text a prospect something deeply romantic like “Come to Newf’s now!!!!” Instead, I use the bathroom trip to bond with the huddle of juniors touching up their makeup or the girl crying over a boy in the handicap stall. It sounds like I’m joking, but trips to the bathroom have been much more interesting lately, and my screen time has almost halved. 

Now that I’m not in love with anyone, Valentine’s Day is just a day (and also an excuse to buy myself some chocolate and a pair of heart-shaped earrings). And, although I will totally be logging off of social media on February 14th, I am overwhelmingly happy for the love other people have in their relationships (and am, for the first time in a long time, not bitter in the slightest). 

Now that I’m not in love with anyone, I recognize what a privilege it was to love in the first place — to know what that all feels like. And despite it ending, I somehow feel myself getting warmer, learning more about myself and the love that’s out there for me (and all of us). 

When I talk about love now, I admit, I have this slightly crazed “take-me-back” wide-eyed look, like a middle-aged man reminiscing his college years or a post-study abroad girl reminiscing on that one trip to Ibiza. 

I feel lucky to have experienced love — even if it wasn’t terribly defined, even if it wasn’t terribly long-term, even if it wasn’t my husband. I feel lucky that it happened. 

But it wasn’t always this way. 

I used to be the heartbroken girl full of resentment with playlists full of sad songs. I used to be the girl who cried when she saw couples in public and flirted around the bar all night long in some desperate attempt to feel wanted. For a long time, I felt reckless with the love I knew I had to give and unsure of where to allocate it and to whom. I was completely addicted to the “fall” and not at all attached to the “love” part. 

Frankly, I was terrified of love, terrified of everything it entails, terrified I was only capable of loving and being loved in short, small doses, sprints which last two or three months and then break and end (with a lake walk or a long paragraph or both). 

So, the summer before senior year, I prescribed myself three months of no boys, and I began to investigate what this whole love thing was about. 

Growing up, I thought I knew everything about love. This was probably because I watched lots of Disney shows and read lots of cheesy romance novels and listened to lots and lots of indie music. 

I knew that “If you love somebody, you set them free,” because that’s something Alex Russo said during her breakup with Mason on an episode of “Wizards of Waverly Place.” I knew that sometimes “home isn’t a place. It is a person,” because that’s something Anna said when she realized she was madly in love with Etienne St. Clair in “Anna and the French Kiss.” I knew that the right man will buy a ring for his wife the week they start dating because that’s what Jim Halpert did for Pam in “The Office.” I knew that “loving is easy” because that was one of my favorite Rex Orange County songs, and I knew that love is “a red, red rose” because that’s a line from a famous Robert Burns poem. 

I thought I knew everything about love — and then I didn’t.

So, “What do you think love even is?” became my tipsy-at-the-bar-question. This was something I asked friends, friends-of-friends, single friends, taken friends, my nana. And even despite my many, many asks, I don’t remember a single answer solidly. 

This isn’t to say there weren’t any good answers. This is to say no answer fit me or felt right. 

When people asked me what I thought love was, I thought about what it felt like the first time. 

I remember falling in love felt like swimming in the ocean past sundown, and the stars are sparkling and reflecting, and you can barely see a foot in front of you, but you don’t care. You know there could be sharks out there but you do it anyway, swimming farther and farther, becoming more and more weightless at the will of the waves and the rhythm of the tide which pulls you in and spits you out. You swim in something you don’t know yet, something you’ve never known before, and you don’t care and you’re not as scared as you are thrilled at the prospect … the prospect of this cosmic mystery, this thing called love.

Now that I’m not in love with anyone, I finally see love for what it really is. 

At 21, I know “to be in love is to touch with a lighter hand” because that’s something Gwendolyn Brooks wrote in one of her poems, and it’s how I feel whenever I wipe a friend’s tears or hold a boy’s face in my hands and call it home. I know that sometimes “love is embarrassing as hell” because Olivia Rodrigo said so. I know that love is getting warmer. It’s unraveling; it’s honest; it’s saying something stupid and then immediately apologizing; it’s “night, night, don’t let the bed bugs bite” and then tucking you in; it’s the song you listen to that always reminds you of them; it’s holding someone close, and then closer; it’s impossible to define. It’s awesome. It’s not always cool. It’s not always fun. It’s worth it. It’s so so worth it.

And I can’t wait to feel it all over again.