Love. We have all felt it—that warm, tingling feeling inside—but no one can truly explain what it is. Not even the great philosophers of the past can decipher its mysterious ways of construing reality as we know it. It makes us foolish, irrational, emotional, and sometimes downright psychotic. It’s what makes us vulnerable: willingly giving our hearts to someone else and trusting they won’t shatter it. But why? What for? What is love?


For me, love is like a painting in a museum. A boy and a girl stand before it hand in hand. Though they are looking at the same work of art, their interpretations are different. The girl sees a compelling masterpiece demanding all of her attention. Every detail lush, vibrant, overwhelming: pleading to be explored. The boy sees a radiant painting similar to the girl but it soon changes; the lines recede, the colors fade, and thus his perception of a lively portrait tapers into a blank canvas. He releases her hand and walks away. But she remains where she is, too submerged in the painting to move on.


That’s what love is to me. Not because I am cynical of it, but because that’s all I have experienced from love so far; he was the boy, and I was the girl. That was my first love—the first painting I saw upon entering the museum—and it was breathtaking. I still cannot fully explain the raw passion or joyous sensations I experienced. But it was also a bittersweet ordeal for he left, not wanting me anymore. It was sudden, it was unexpected, it knocked me to my knees before the painting. For a very long time, I was too shocked and scared to will myself to stand and walk away. I was too engrossed in that painting to see that we are all like people milling around a museum. We are all mindless puppets wondering around blindly in God’s hands, searching for our soul mates. And we will never find the one we are destined to be with until we are hand and hand with them before a painting, seeing the exact same thing.


It took a lot of time to open my eyes and see the museum we are all in. For weeks, I continually questioned why he left me, never accepting the fact that he didn’t love me anymore. Everything I said, everything I did, I thought why. It drove me mad. Why did it fade for him, when it didn’t for me? Why was he able to let go and walk away so easily? Why couldn’t he still see the lavish colors? The more I pondered, the more skeptical the reasons became. Maybe the colors were never lush. Maybe another painting—something far more glamorous—caught his eye. Whatever the reason, I’d never know. Romances don’t rewind.


After time, I was able to rest my head from running miles around my thoughts on why he let go. I had assumed I was doomed to ponder those questions every waking moment. It would be my nature to do so. People constantly praise my analytical mind, as bizarre as that may sound—it’s perfect for research as I’ve been told. I never gave up on problems in school. I’d reanalyze and examine every clue and detail until I had it solved. That determination to always find the answer is probably how I grew to excel so far. But I couldn’t keep searching for the reason why he left. There’s no such thing as an analytical heart. For once in my life, I willingly had to let go. And it was hard. Giving up has such a bad connotation to it, but I had to that time in order to heal. If I hadn’t, it sure would have been the end of me.


But I wasn’t alone. My friends had tried to help by explaining what they did to move on. But movie marathons and tubs of ice cream couldn’t make me feel better. They couldn’t even get me to curse his name and move on. After all, it worked for them. But no matter how I wished I could just hate him, I can’t bring myself to it. He broke my heart, but I still love him with all the little pieces. And no matter how I tried to explain it to my oldest and closest friends, they couldn’t understand. It was then I realized that perhaps they don’t see love the way I do. They don’t cope from a broken heart the way I do. Only I have the ability to perceive what I see. Only I have the power to move on. And that’s when I saw all of it: the museum, the people, the paintings. I turned my head away from that masterpiece to see that there were still many artworks left unseen down the hall. I also saw him, wondering alone from afar. The reminder that he left me came and washed over. And for the first time, I accepted it. I got back on my feet and walked away.


Love is whatever we make it to be. As of now, I see the museum. But only God knows what tomorrow will bring. Things change, people change—they can both fade away. My perception of love may change with time; I’ve accepted that. So instead of pondering for the perfect explanation of it, I should just let go and live through it all. So now I close my eyes and wait. I wait for a hand, warm and welcoming, to reach for mine and lead me to another painting. Like life, the museum has a closing time and I still have many more works of art to experience before I go.