Love is unserious business

And we have a moral imperative to remember that.

When I was 23, I made it my mission to fall in love.

I was desperate to find my person, mostly because I felt so un-whole on my own (a realization I had later on and something I’m working on, OK?)

I treated dating like a work task, and after so many awkward first dates, I became a little sterile towards the whole thing.

My persistence and insistence eventually led me to a person with whom I did fall in love, and with whom I’m still coupled. We have a 2-year-old now.

But our journey has not been easy, for a plethora of reasons—one of those reasons being because I was so laser focused on finding someone to make me feel whole.

Classic, raised-on-Disney-movies, rookie mistake, I know!

But now that I have 7 years of distance from that version of me, and what feels like more years’ worth of breakthroughs and breakdowns, here’s what I would tell that version myself (and anyone who finds themself in a similar situation):

Hello you silly, beautiful human being,

If you find yourself taking your love journey very seriously, I’m here to tell you that you’ve lost the plot.

Of course love is serious business—but it’s also very unserious business. Both are true, just like how you love Sex and the City but don’t love Carrie Bradshaw.

I know you want more than anything to fall in love, but, respectfully, I think your idea of love might be a little short-sighted and, dare I say, self-serving.

Love isn’t the fluffy, pre-packaged sycophantic validation high you’re chasing.

Love thrives off of play, pleasure, and silly goose-ness. Love is creativity and absurdity as much as it is devotion and transformation. In the expansiveness of love, logic dissolves because it’s not meant to be measured by such a system.

People say love is illogical or irrational—the things we do for love—as if logic and reason are the things that keep us grounded and right and true.

But love obliterates borders and binaries.

Love helps us stitch new realities and see the possibilities outside of what we always knew to be true.

Love topples, blows open, and liberates each of us from the dark exile we’ve been beaten into by shame, by social conditioning, by trauma.

Love is scathing, it’s righteous, it’s insurgent.

And in a world that is becoming increasingly removed from love as praxis, you have a duty to embody these love truths that capitalism has taken from us.

Pete Townshend once said “Let my love open the door…” Maybe he was in on the thing so many of us have forgotten: that love is a portal both to uncharted lands of possibility, and into the ancient remembering that we are each of us divine. And that we can always access this awakening by loving and being loved.

So my dear, keep at it, because you will find a love that opens those doors I was talking about. But maybe just try to have fun and be playful while you do it—and remember that you already have so much love in your life. You’re whole and perfect right now.

Love looks good on you.

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And speaking of love—cmon segue!—I just launched The Lover’s Renaissance, a digital reading meant to transform your relationship to love and loving. Check out more here <3

Please excuse typos. I’m a sleep-deprived toddler mom. <3