By Emma Romick

I always looked forward to the moment someone told me they loved me. 

Someone with no obligation to care for me, no predetermined acquaintance, 

Just by sheer, unadulterated chance. 

Everyone waits for that second, no matter how cheesy or silly it may sound. 

The vulnerability of those words. 

The sweaty hands and nervousness.

I believed that love was something grounded, 

Something so soundly stable in its mere existence, 

That nothing could ruin it. 

I mean, growing up, my favorite books and movies always portrayed the love held between two people to be stronger than the forces of life,

that without fail, 

managed to get in the way. 

The first time I heard it, “I love you”, 

I didn’t feel the tingling lightness I always thought was so important to me. 

I felt confused, and not quite satisfied by those three little words. 

It was never the sweet, slow burn of tension, 

with the words practically hanging off their lips.

When it happened it felt heavy. 

The moment seemed to come in a drunken ramble of rushed feelings and impulsion. 

Love wasn’t supposed to hurt, was it?

Time went on and it happened again, 

A moment where I felt my mind falter, my stomach in my throat. 

I knew the feeling wasn’t from a sense of unhappiness, 

Yet the undulating uncertainty in the back of my mind left me reeling, 

wondering what was missing from such a fairytale moment. 

I was standing before someone who said they loved me, 

Yet I felt trapped in my own existence, 

A vessel of who I was, and who they saw me to be. 

I struggled to understand what was so difficult about love. 

I mean, wasn’t it supposed to be this magical connection and feeling of certainty? 

Why did I find myself feeling lonelier than I’d ever felt? 

The people in front of me told me they loved me, wasn’t that enough? 

They chose to be there without any obligation. 

What made things so difficult for me? 

I always looked forward to the moment someone told me they loved me, 

but now I’m not so sure. 

I realized in my tribulations of romance that while yes I wanted love, 

It was the intimacy of being understood that I wanted more. 

I don’t think I’ve had that “real love,” 

You know, the kind that scoops you up and embraces you when you’re at your lowest. 

I’ve been loved for how I made someone feel, 

Or how I made their life easier. 

I often felt like a therapist, a voice of reason, someone to pick up the slack. 

It means more to me to be seen and understood, valued for simply being, than to be loved for a service.

I look forward to the moment someone tells me they see me. 

They look at me and know me, wholeheartedly and willingly. 

Someone who takes me as I am, with nothing in between. 

For to be loved is not nearly as special to me, 

As it is to be known.