“... it’s a blessed thing to love and feel loved in return.”

E.A. Bucchianeri

Falling in love is portrayed as this unique experience that you may be able to only live once or twice if you are really lucky, you are supposed to hear wedding bells, see the world in pink and smell the roses from afar, but that almost never happens.
A lot of people fall in love with the idea of love and look out for it, they search like dogs, until they find something similar to it, they settle for a while until they realise that wasn't what they were looking for, others, like me, don't look out for love, as many past experiences have proved us that maybe love isn't about roses and wedding bells.
I like to think I believe in love, I've gotten my heart broken more than once by people I once thought I loved when in reality, all it was that I cared for them and someone snuck the idea of love in my head, making it hard to forget and move on.
As I said before I just recently said goodbye to one of my love interest from high school, it took me a hell of a long time to realise that I cared for him, that I once thought he was my friend and I almost idolised him for so long, that when I started to see his true colours I realised that maybe it wasn't love, maybe it was a friendship that was evolving before everything went to sh*t.
After that I closed myself to men and love in general, I couldn't bare the idea of someone coming close enough to discover who I really was, I was afraid someone would hurt me as bad as others did in the past, I was scared that if I cared enough, they would hurt me.
It took a long while for me to understand that maybe you shouldn't be afraid of such a pure feeling, love hurts and it isn't easy but at the end it's worthy, I can see it every time my mum worries for my father or in the eyes of different couples.
Love is complicated, love is one of those things you've got to feel in order to understand what the fuss is about, you cannot live it through other's experiences, but you can indeed choose whether or not you'll be open to the idea of love.
Don't be afraid of love, open yourself to it, if it's right, even if it hurts, it'll all be worthy at the end.