I have always been in love. I have always been in love with love. I love love.
With one moment, everything around you stops. With one touch, your heart races faster than you ever thought it could. With one soft lingering gaze, you fall head over heels without any question as to why you feel this way. That’s what love does to us. It changes your life right before your eyes. It brings out that little child in us who has always dreamed of finding that prince or princess to sit next to in that big white beautiful carriage as you ride off towards your castle and the famous phrase “And they lived happily ever after” fades in like magic. It was what we all wanted and we wanted to find it soon. Love was something we could never wait for.
Next to pretending to be what we wanted to be when we grew up, we always pretended that we were in love. It was a childhood dream that we longed for to come true. Ever since I was a little girl, love was the only thing I wanted out of life. You could give me all the Barbie Dolls and teddy bears and remote control puppy dogs in the world, but it would never satisfy my desire for the true happiness in life. I would always pair things together as if they were objects made for each other. The pink crayon would have a crush on the blue crayon, the red birds would be calling out to the little brown birds to go on dates, lady bugs would be getting married to bumble bees, and the yellow Power Ranger and green Power Ranger were crazy about each other, they were just too shy to say so. There was even a time when, instead of playing with all my toys, I’d go into the bathroom and pair up tooth brushes and make them “kiss” each other by pushing the bristle heads together until they stuck. It made my parents mad because it was quite unsanitary, but I thought the toothbrushes were happy together, so I didn’t care.
I’m sure we all remember our first crush. And we remember that tingly feeling we would get when they caught us staring at them. You were embarrassed, but still had that happiness that they were looking at you too, even if it was just by chance. That was my favorite feeling as a little girl. He was a blonde, blue-eyed kid with the cutest cheeks when he smiled really big. At recess, we would pretend to get married under the monkey bars and I would have a handful of colorful pipe-cleaners as my bouquet. We never kissed because we still believed in cooties, but it was always fun making the kissy faces at each other every time someone said “You may kiss the bride”. We got married three times when we were in kindergarten, and twice when we were in 1st grade. We never got married again after that because he moved away. But we never got “divorced” either. A part of me still likes to pretend that he remembers his four-time wife.
There was one couple who I admired most when it came to love: Lucy and Ricky Ricardo from “I Love Lucy”. They were the cutest, funniest, most lovable people I knew, even though they were just characters in an old television show. I always dreamed of finding my very own “Ricky”. I always dreamed of a wonderful man walking through the door shouting “Priscilla! I’m home!” and I’d run out of the kitchen and into his arms giving him a little peck on the cheek. They were the perfect couple that I wanted to be. Every time Lucy did something silly or complained about something going on, Ricky would still love her more each day. He’d put up with her craziness and her loud obnoxious voice and kiss her with the same feeling he did when they first met. That was my idea of true love. That is what I wanted most.
As I grew older and as I learned more and more about my life and love, I had a set idea of how I wanted it to go. It was going to be a classic love story, one that Disney would probably write about. I wanted someone who I could talk to, someone who would make me laugh, and someone who would make me truly happy. He would know more about me than I knew about myself. He would brighten my day every day just by smiling in my direction. He would be everything a young girl would dream her prince would be. And when I was old enough and found someone, I realized that I got more than I ever wanted. I got someone who was the better half of me, someone who surprised me with everything he did, whether it’d be a good or bad surprise, but appreciated nonetheless. He cared about me; he watched over me; he loved me. And that was something I never asked for. I wanted him to, but I never asked him to. I never knew how to repay him. I could give him everything I owned, all the presents in the world, take him out to dinner every night, but I knew that wouldn’t have pleased him. All I could do was love him back. I loved him, and he loved me. Nothing else would ever matter as much as that given fact. Who he was, what he had, what he was doing or had to do, nothing could stop this love. And when I realized that love was the only thing that we wanted from each other, I knew that I had finally found my true love.
Of all the times sitting in my bedroom reading fairy tales, playing with dolls, and making everyone marry each other, I never thought that love would require just one thing. To have love, you need love. And that’s something I finally have. I’m the pink crayon who found her blue crayon. I’m the little brown bird going on a date with the red bird. I’m the lady bug dreaming about marrying the bumble bee. I’m the yellow Power Ranger who finally told the green one that she loves him. And I’m the toothbrush who’s happy kissing her lovable toothbrush partner. It’s like everything I’ve dreamed of has come true with so much more than I could have imagined. I’ve found my Ricky Ricardo. I love love.