Feeling Love, in Retrospect

We sat in silence, absentmindedly eyeing the backs of the wooly bus seats in front of us, occasionally stealing glances at the greenery whizzing by on our ride up from the Atlanta to New York City. Our hands were were clumsily linked at the fingers and rested on the lump of jackets between our laps. Dumb smiles plastered our 16- and 17-year-old faces. That moment could've easily been an awkward silence. But it wasn't, because just moments before, he'd asked me to be his girlfriend. And I said yes.

Before that two-week college tour spent under loose adult supervision, he and I had said no more than a few words during brief hallway huddles with mutual friends. We were simply colleagues. In time, I'd learn that the L-word was more than just part of a Hallmark card greeting and the quiet, dreadlocked boy who sat on the other side of Ms. Medlin's English class would eventually claim ownership of my heart.

I can't really recall the moment I said I love you for the first time and meant it. I'm not even sure which one of us said it first. But I know that when we exchanged our virgin sentiments, the new feeling made perfect sense. Almost seven years of uninterrupted singledom later, whatever fleeting feelings I felt then have reduced themselves to a figment of my imagination. It's not that I've become scornful of love or anything. I just… forgot. 

Some things I can still recount from our courtship. There were spontaneous trips to the Bronx Zoo and Roosevelt Field Mall during days off from school. There were times I'd visit his house to say hi to his mom, aunts, sister and little brothers, then sit on his bed not doing anything but playing Wii games, listening to Ne-Yo and (willingly) folding his laundry until it was time to head back to my side of the subway map. I remember trying to keep up with my best friend and her boyfriend to the pulse of Soca music down Eastern Parkway during the Labor Day Parade. Or that one time I went to National Wholesale Liquidators with my mother and pushed a wobbly cart down the hosiery aisle, imagining us one day grocery shopping as a couple. We talked for hours on the phone about everything and nothing as if I didn't have to get up before 6 a.m. for school the next day. Sometimes there were arguments about whatever, where I angrily hung up the phone just to see the same number call me right back minutes later, and him insisting that we just talk it out. Closing every exchange of words with "I love you." Yes, 2007 was no doubt a blissful year.

During the time we were together, my heart felt full of something. There were plenty of unforgettable experiences -- all kept in tact by Facebook pictures I refuse to delete for nostalgic purposes -- but now, I can't necessarily equate them with feeling "in love." 

We are constant consumers of love-related things. It's a common motif in music, art, movies and other forms of daily entertainment. John Legend's Love in the Future oozed the four letter word from the intro's first falsetto right down to the album coda. Flicks like The Notebook, Love and Basketball and A Walk to Remember refuse to remove themselves from at-home cuffing catalogues. Beyonce Knowles-Carter -- having been crazy, dangerously and drunk in love with the same guy -- could teach a post-graduate course on it. We gladly eat it up, living vicariously through the amorous stanzas and scenes left on wax and film reels. It's an experience to delight in without requiring present understanding. Love is such a huge part of the human experience, so it's a bit unsettling to have totally forgotten what it even feels like. 

According to the aforementioned, love is supposed to feel like a pleasant flutter in your gut. Fireworks in the sky when your lips connect. Everything else disappearing when you lock eyes. An electric current striking you when you know they're "the one." Why am I unable to mentally recreate a feeling like that, and one that I was so sure of back then?

I miss that familiarity. I bawl at every proposal video I watch without fail. Every. Single. One. I feel the waterworks a-coming during well-directed romantic movies and frequently aww and double tap coupley snapshots floating down my Instagram feed. I love love. I love the idea of love. I'm fascinated by the concept of immediate love. I believe everyone deserves love. And I know I want to be in love again. I just wish the idea didn't feel so foreign. 

Looking back on it, I'm proud of whatever we had when we had it. Although the butterflies have long flown away and I can't say that I miss him, I thank him for planting that seed and setting up the potential for an even grander experience. I know the next time love hits me, I won't see it coming.