I fell in love when I was 16.
Like often happens the first time you fall in love, it takes you a while to realize. And some of the things that end up meaning the most to you were things that you felt weird about in the beginning.
I was 16 when I met the great love of my life- and 8 years later, I feel incredibly qualified to call it such. I have loved many people – healthily and unhealthily. Friends, lovers, and some caught in between. Every love is different, and it is in knowing this that I can unequivocally state that this is the love of my love.
I fell in love with, in, and for Europe.
I fell in love at 16 surrounded by the greenest greens I have ever seen in Poland, flanking the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps. Because there is nothing more beautiful than life returning to heal the scorched earth, to remind us that while there is no going back, there is always going forward.
I fell in love at 17 rushing off a plane and onto the train, whisking myself away, unsupervised for the first time, into the late summers of Spain. Watching the world flicker by, sitting in the window, emanating excitement and pure joy with one of my closest friends beside me.
I knew I was in love for the first time at 18. Living aboard a ship that took me across the rocky Atlantic into the calm Mediterranean. Washing over Greek islands with no inkling of an idea of where I was or what was waiting for me. Bustling through the heightened alleyways of Portugal, confessing for the first time what I knew to be true: that I was in the land of love.
At 19 I felt hurt and rejected. Separated from the place I love for the longest period since our introduction, life having charted a different course for me. In open rebellion I did the only thing I knew to do; I laid down the planes to return before a year had passed. Writing letters and performing monologues to my dearest.
20 finally rolled around and I made my triumphant return. Running through the tulip fields of the Keukenhof, drinking it all in. Feeling my future at my fingertips… life had never been better. Determined to see as much as I could with the time I had, I felt connected and energized everywhere I went. Stepping into Stockholm, gasping in admiration at how perfect it all seemed to be.
When I was 21 and returned I was a different man. I was mere weeks away from completing the long-awaited cohabitation process with my love. The one thing standing between me and that was a 3-week passage of time, exploring the borders of my beloved, living life in ecstasy and anticipation of what life would be knowing and loving myself for the first time.
22 began with resounding success. My love and I were never to be separated again. Stockholm had opened its arms to me in the twilight of summer, our shared life truly together had finally begun. To celebrate, I swam in a Baltic channel. I climbed to the highest points of my new home. I gazed in adoration at what life finally was.
Summer waned into autumn, which decayed into winter, and for the first time trouble brewed. There was a fight that I felt powerless within. Wounded, I retreated to safety across the ocean. Wanting desperately not to leave but not knowing what else could be done. For months I wandered in a haze. Feeling hurt in a way that seeps into every piece of who you are.
As the spring thaw came to me, I risked a return. I could still see what there could be, but for the first time, the steps to obtain it felt impossibly steep. At 23 I stood in the dirty London streets with the steadfast belief that I could fix this. I only needed the time to figure out how.
Afraid of going a year without seeing my love, I made my emboldened return at 24. Taking the time to wade through the cities, to show how earnest and serious I had become. To etch the words into Us that I am coming back. That this story is not over, and that our next chapter will be the story that is whispered about for eons.
I will always come back. You are a part of me in a capacity none else can hope to achieve and while this can seem frightening, I am left with nothing but the drive to return and return to our unity. My darling, beautiful vast and imperfect Europe, I will come back for you as many times as it takes before you allow me to stay.
My heart is yours, my dreams are of you, and the future we will write together.
