Tuesday, September 3, 2013
"You never forget your first love"
Eleanor and Park is a boy-meets-girl
story. A classic. Predictable, you may say. But the story happened when they
were both too young to care about anything else. And that is its magic right
there.
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| I couldn't put it down until the very last page. Thanks to my trusty reading light my parents had no idea I was up until 2am. |
Reading Eleanor and Park was similar
to taking a time machine ride to a decade ago. It was nostalgic, sweet,
innocent and… new. A young love always feels brand new.
We’ve all heard it enough, ‘You never
forget your first love.’ It sounds like a threat sometimes, like the memories
will haunt you forever in an unpleasant way. But I believe that the real charm
of a first love isn’t its being unforgettable; it is that it's recognizable.
That there is no way you wouldn’t know you are in love for the very first time
in your life. It is scary and unfamiliar and foolish but it is love, and you
know.
‘Tell
us why Romeo and Juliet survived four hundred years?’
‘Because…
people want to remember what’s it’s like to be young? And in love?’
I remember how it is to be young and
in love. I remember it so clearly I am thankful no one is watching me as I
write this because I’m blushing like a giddy teenager right now.
I remember being in love, like really
IN love.
I remember how it is to be selfish,
immature and demanding. I remember being all that and worse because I wanted to
test this person who promised I can never push him away. There were moments
that seem funny now but were all so magnified then. Every touch, every glance,
every misunderstanding. Like every moment was a tug of war between ‘this is
real’ and ‘how can this be?’.
When
he touched Eleanor’s hand, he recognized her. He knew.
If I had met him at a different phase
in my life, I would like to believe that we will still recognize each other.
That our souls would find out, somehow, that we belong to each other. That we
would know. We’d meet, we’d talk and we’d fall in love. I wouldn’t love him any
less. But I’m pretty sure I’d love him differently.
I
want everyone to meet you. You’re my favorite person of all time.
Because he made me feel safe.
Because he was my getaway car from the supposedly inescapable years of doubting one’s self.
Deep inside, I was clouded with insecurities. But he reminded me over and over
how I should feel about myself with just the way he looked at me.
Because he was kind and patient and
he held my heart at the palm of his hands like it was the only thing that could
matter.
‘Did
I ruin everything?’
‘Every-what?’
‘Every-us.’
‘Not.
Possible.’
When something feels that good,
beautiful and sacred, the likelihood of being hurt because of it is too
far-fetched you just don’t think about it. There is nothing that can be more agonizing than not being together and the only reason for you not to be is if you fell
out of love. And in the parameters of a first love, falling out of love is not
a possibility. Falling out of love is the end of the world.
Being brave when you’re young is
given. It compensates for all the things you don’t know. As adults, the
equation is reversed in some way. We are brave only about things that we
know. And whoever knew everything there is about love?
Nothing
before you counts. And I can’t imagine an after.
That’s the thing. He made me feel
like there wasn’t any need for an after. I was naive enough to have faith in
that. I felt so. Hence, I believed so.
There’s
no reason to think we’re going to stop loving each other.
Things are a lot different now. Life
is bigger than high school and it’s a good thing. Although sometimes,
adult matters get in the way of faith and love and romance. Worrying pushes you
to be jaded and pessimistic. But once in a while, reality gets a
little blurry and we hold hands and we talk and we fall in love, in THAT way,
all over again.
But
it’s up to us. It’s up to us not to lose this.
And we didn’t.
And never will.
To my very own Park,
Thank you for not stopping.
Everything else I want to tell you
can be summed up in just three words long. :)
# posted by Liana : 7:35 AM
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