Love it’s what makes the world go round. Well, to be fair, the earth spinning on its axis has more to do with science than love.

But I’m not here to talk about inertia or gravitational pulls, at least not in a scientific way.

We all chase it—that euphoric spine-tingling magic we can sense in our soul. That deep down, gut-twisting drunk love. Love’s potion is an intoxicating drop of dew falling tearfully from the earth’s most beautiful flower.

*Screech* … did you hear that?

That’s the sound of love’s tires stopping in her tracks. Wait, love is now getting out from behind the wheel and angrily coming towards me. I think she’s holding a tire iron. It seems even love has a touch of road rage. I better get out of here before she destroys my perception of her.

Love is tangled, uncontrollable and deceptive. It’s not always—almost never—the magical fairy tale we as little girls were fed on Sunday evenings by Mr. Disney. Walt, I have to tell you; your brood of overachieving, white-horse-riding princes has given me an uncomfortable rash since my first awkward teenage kiss. And at no time has love come to my ivory tower and saved my ass from an apple-wielding woman in the woods.

Love is hard. It is work and it is certainly not perfect.

What love has done for me is regularly given me hope but it has also left me tear-filled and ugly crying on the bathroom floor. It has given me babies and best friends. She is definitely the most intoxicating emotion I’ve ever had the pleasure of feeling throughout my life.

But love isn’t perfection. It’s much like a cracked and scrambled egg. Protecting all your feelings in a hard shell which you eventually let out to be mixed about and fried in a searing hot skillet. And when love burns, we add ketchup to cover up the fowl taste it has left in our mouths. We blame ourselves for messing up love and conceal the reality of love’s imperfect ways. Don’t get me wrong, love can change the world but we have to work at it.

I’m guilty of believing in love’s perfection. It’s not there and love has something to say to all of us. She’s pissed off and tired of holding the weight of the world on her shoulders. She knows she’s a hot mess. She’s been casting her spell with a touch of heartbreak to convince us we have to work at it.

It’s our perception of love and what we assume it owes us that has us askew. She doesn’t owe us anything. We are the ones who owe all we are to Love’s courage to open our hearts and bringing us together.

I think it’s time we give her a break. She’s spent a lifetime trying to teach us she’s not perfect, yet here we are serving up bland, wild fairy tales of perfect love on a platter of glass slipper lies. She can be scattered, dirty, hard to understand but honest. It is also tragic, heartbreaking, untimely and soul-crushing. She is beautiful, bewildering and heartwarming, as well as sexy, free and all-encompassing.

Messy, broken, beautiful, imperfect love.

There wouldn’t be so many songs about her if it weren’t for her beauty. She has been giving us hope since the beginning of time and without her in our lives we often feel lost, hopeless. But I think it’s time we realize she’s not flawless.

I’ve been chasing the perfect love my whole life. Whether that was the love and acceptance of my peers, parents, teachers or my soul-mate. Love is what gives me hope, energy and a reason to open my eyes every morning.

She’s messy but I’m finally willing to embrace her chaotic charm.

~

Author: Darla Halyk

Apprentice Editor: Debbi Serafinchon/Editor: Katarina Tavčar

Photo: George Miller/Flickr