Everyone recognizes high school love all too well. High school love is, more or less, holding hands while walking in the halls and never letting go no matter how sweaty your palms may get. It is smiling at your phone every time it lights up with their name and then talking until almost 2 in the morning even though you have a math test first period. High school love is...peculiar. It is wonderful and messy all at the same time, and most people would probably prefer to forget that time in their lives. However, our High School love affairs will always have some sort of a special place in our hearts because as much as we may try, we can never forget the feeling of being hopelessly in love as a teenager.
Many speculate the validity of a high school relationship, thinking that it is “not real” or that there is no way anyone in high school can truly be “in love.” But who knows what love is? Maybe love is sweaty palms, late-night texts, and skipping class to see one another (not that I condone that), or maybe love is waiting until you find “the one” much later in life. Who knows, perhaps I am a hopeless romantic who believes everything is rainbows and unicorns, but in the grand scheme of things, rainbows and unicorns do not sound so bad. And maybe that is how we should look at love anyway, as though it really is not the worst thing in the world, even if it is in High School. Most of us are exposed to this stigma that kids cannot fall in love, and partaking in it is something that adults do (yes, adults), because how can a kid ever begin to fathom what love even is? However in my perhaps unpopular opinion, love is not something that you just find or stumble upon like a rock. Rather, love is something that finds you, and no one ever knows when it will.
There is a reason why we never forget our high school sweethearts, whether you were in love with them or not. They were perhaps the first person to make your heart beat faster and your mind go all fuzzy because you could not think of anything other than them. This makes me believe that sure, high school love is real. Maybe it is crazy, but love comes in many forms, even the kind that is written in notes passed during history class. The fact of the matter is that these kinds of people do not come around too often, the ones that are there with you through even your most awkward high school years. When it is truly right, they are more than just your boyfriend or girlfriend; they are your partner in crime, your best friend, and one of your biggest supporters. They are there with you from the beginning of it all, experiencing all the best (and worst) that high school has to offer.
Do not get me wrong, sometimes it takes people years to find true love, and those who do should know just how lucky they are. There is a real love out there, the kind of love that people search for, for their whole lives. In the simplest of words, to be with someone that makes you look forward to waking up in the morning is truly a special thing, something that we should never take for granted. High School itself is a whirlwind of uncertainty and, for lack of a better word, craziness. However, that does not mean that love does not have a place within the midst of all of that. Because that is what life is right? It is uncertain and it is crazy, but love is both of those things and so much more.
Image Courtesy of The Japan Times