Here I am listening to a Blink 182 song where Tom is repeating “love is dangerous” over and over again. I could not agree more, Tom. Love is dangerous. When you feel that deeply, that intensely, it’s hard for you to see clearly. You can’t control who you love or why you love them. The heart wants what it wants. Not being able to control your connection to another person is difficult. It would be amazing if you could turn the “love light switch” off. But it doesn’t work that way. When I love someone, I fall head first into that love. My heart opens and I reveal my vulnerability. Once I feel safe and I connect with a man, which takes me some time to do, I will show him exactly who I am. The times that this has actually happened to me are rare when I fully revealed who I was. When I did this, when I was able to freely be myself, I did it without thinking, which is never a good thing to do regardless of the context. However, logic and love don’t go together well. They don’t because love doesn’t care about logic.

You can try to get counseled out of loving someone, but it probably won’t work. Love is going to kick you in the ass and demand that you follow it. My heart leads me wherever I go, and when I follow it, I have some phenomenal experiences. Despite the fact that love will inevitably hurt me, I still risk that. I still let myself dive into the pool and swim toward the edge. Whether I’m racing, doing laps, or laying on my back floating through the water, I am at love’s mercy. I let love guide me. When love is good, it’s amazing. It’s so rare that I can see inside someone enough to love that person. As soon as I recognize that I can love a man, and I feel safe to do so, I let myself show that love.

Life is too short to not know how you feel about someone. I know when I’m in love. When I know it, I name it aloud. “I am in love with you.” That’s real, that’s true and that is fucking beautiful. Don’t let yourself be fooled into believing that true love doesn’t exist. It’s real, it’s powerful and it means something incredibly special. I’ll always remember the scene in The Princess Bride where Wesley says (as he’s fighting to stay alive) “Truuuuuueee love.” After that Billy Crystal’s character Miracle Max gets excited and starts off on another topic, cheating in a card game. But anyway, true love is real, poignant and it has the ability to transform people from closed to open.

In order to be in love part of you has to open entirely. You need to be seen by the person who is in love with you, and though that’s terrifying, to me it’s an exhilarating feeling. When a man that I love can see through me, it’s incredibly powerful and even chilling. I crave that feeling, I want it, I need it even. Even though love has the potential to be dangerous, I still yearn for it. By dangerous, I mean that love has the ability to break us into small sharp pieces. We shatter on the ground when someone we are in love with breaks our hearts. But, we will love again, and it was worth loving in the first place. If you are beginning to feel drawn to someone when you start to see the good in them, and you realize that you are in love, own it and experience it; and cherish each moment. You don’t know what will happen in the future, but you do know what a beautiful feeling you’re experiencing right now.