there are no rules

unknown

i don't know enough about anything to preach to anyone, i don't have enough life experience to make assumptions about love, about what it means and what it does to us. but i've caught on recently, to something. through a series of painful realizations, it's started to make an odd sort of sense. not real sense, but the crazy, uninhibited sort of sense that only love can make. i've realized that everything we make ourselves do, everything we put ourselves through, there's no reason for it. the things we say, the places we go to on dates, the pda, the hand holding, the little notes, we only do these things because that's all we know of love. that's what we've seen on television and read about in books. that's the kind of love that we've been taught, is real. but it's only action. and actions might speak louder than words, but feeling means more than action. it's like a twisted game of rock-paper-scissors.

i know that these things often do accompany real love. because if you're in love, you WANT to hold his hand. you want to leave a little note in his jacket pocket for his mom to find in the wash a week later, give to him, and know he's thinking of you. you want to smell him, you want him to hold you and tell you that you're perfect just the way you are. you want to kiss him and make him feel good. you want to listen to the music he listens to, just in the hopes that it will help you understand him better. you want to talk to his dog, and help his mom clean up in the kitchen, talk sports with his dad. you want to know everything. you want to put his needs ahead of your own, and you want to do it all so that he KNOWS you love him. but doing it when you're legitimately in love isn't playing by the rules. because in love, there are no rules. no one to tell you that you're doing it wrong, not even yourself. because to worry and nit pick over the small things is to look back. and love means not looking back. love means holding him, and being afraid. because you could lose him at any moment, but that fear is what keeps you hanging on. in love, anything goes, and that's okay. that's what is so beautiful about it.

is love fear? i don't think so. but what do i know? my life isn't even a quarter of the way through, and i think about things like this? i think about a lot of things that scare me actually. what i loved about him was that he was my best friend. he didn't scare me, not until he left. and now looking at him, every time, it tears me up. i wonder where i went wrong. which rules did i break? but i realized, recently, that the only rule i broke, was assuming that there were rules. because there aren't. i realized too late, that in love, there are no rules.

-leigh