Aspen Rush
Editor-in-Chief
When we talk about love, our brains have been trained to jump to the romantic. From childhood, we have been told to search for “the one.” At ten, I was amongst thousands of young readers who picked up Twilight for the first time. More than anything, I wanted that epic, earth-shattering romantic love. Through my preteens and teens, I tried with boyfriend after boyfriend hoping that maybe this time, he would be my other half (We could talk about compulsive heterosexuality here, but that’s another Viewpoint).
Despite my desperate search for my version of Edward, my romantic relationships were never fulfilling. They were thrilling for a time. Don’t get me wrong, I love the thrill of a whirlwind romance, but the true loves of my life have been found in platonic love. I hadn’t been dreaming about that sort of love but I should have been. My freshman year at the College, I stumbled into the most powerful and deep love I have ever experienced. At the time, I had a long-term boyfriend who had followed me from my hometown. Already, he and I were talking about marriage and a life together. I allowed myself to be swept up in the fantasy of it all. I ached to be understood and I thought the only way I could be was through a romantic relationship. In some ways, he did fill that space for me but he was only a placeholder as I searched for the love I found in my friends.
The next couple of years, I found myself laying on my best friends’ floor crying about our families and about growing up. We began our tradition of floor-laying. On particularly difficult days, we would sit on the floor and we would recline until we were both on the floor, shoulder to shoulder. As we lay next to each other, I was hyper aware of how we were touching. Our hands would graze each other and our arms would bump. Was it too much? Was it not enough? I don’t think either of us could decide. Most often, we would each cross arms across our chest. Since we started this tradition, we’ve been picking favorite ceilings. My favorite will always be the first: 337 in Born hall. The concrete ceiling was painted white and there was a seam on the right side of the room. We talked and stared at the ceiling and talked and stared at the ceiling until our hair was stringy with tears and stuck to the sides of our faces.
Sometimes, when we have these moments, I think about who I would be if my friends hadn’t come into my life. This love saved me from the version of myself I fear the most- the one with a white picket house and an okay husband and a mediocre job who had never experienced the depths of true love. This love cracked me open, took a look inside and nurtured every part of me.
This is it. This is true love.