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Bethany Howell (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

I once believed love to be something that occurs to a person – a passive process that is both inevitable and all-encompassing. That is what I was taught through countless forms of media consumed by my childhood self. Love seemed to be something just out of reach for me at that age. Sure, I knew what it was like to have crushes – the youthful flip of the stomach when I saw that one individual – but love was something greater than that. I had just assumed that I would stumble upon the life-changing event that is love when I was old enough or wise enough to finally deserve it. 

One thing I was too young to realize was that it is something given without needing to be deserved. Love, at its best, is both unconditional and purposeful. Though it took many years and many trials, I see now that love is not something that occurs to a person, but something that a person must seek out; love is not a passive process, but an active one. Each day I choose to love my partner, far past the phase of butterflies and nervous glances. Years pass and love still remains through my own power of will and loyalty. There are days when love seems like a battle – a war against myself to fight on the side of those that I hold dear; however, there are other days where it is impossible not to love and not to be loved in return, even if you did not want it to be the case. Love is a challenge, but, with the right person, love can also come so easily. It is almost a sort of oxymoron, being both so effortful but also so completely impossible to avoid. 

I know this sounds cheesy, but I have also realized that love is a promise to be made and to be kept. Just like a promise, love can be hard to keep and can sometimes be better broken or left behind; however, the best type of love is a promise shared and kept – this is the steady love we all search for. To love and to be loved, in my mind, is the purest form of vulnerability. That in itself can be terrifying. There is hope, however, as with this vulnerability comes a level of safety one can only get in a relationship with another being. There have been times that, despite my best efforts, love was not meant for me – a promise meant to be broken. Great effort goes into loving someone, but even greater effort is required to stop loving them. A broken promise stings in a way nothing else can. This is a truth that adds to both the complexity and difficulty of the act of love. Even with all of the evidence supporting its dangerous nature, love cannot be ignored, nor can be dodged, though I have tried many times. Loving is not easy, but stepping outside of it is borderline impossible.

Love may not be exactly what I pictured as a child. Though it was difficult to comprehend, even at that tender age I was experiencing love. The love of my mother was something that permeated every portion of my life. My younger self had one thing right after all – love truly is all-encompassing. I still feel my mother’s love today through our daily text conversations and her voice in my mind reassuring me when I struggle. Now this love is mixed with the love I feel for my partner, for my best friend, and for myself. Just as my religious upbringing taught me, there exists in everyone an abundance of love that does not diminish when spread out amongst many people. My love is not diluted nor is it the same across individuals. Of course, I love my friend in a different way than I love my partner, but it is all still love and affection. 

To conclude – is loving easy? It depends who you ask or even at what moment you ask them. If you were to ask me all those years ago, I would have told you, “Of course loving is easy! It must be as easy as falling asleep!” Coming from a hesitant insomniac, loving may always be a bit more difficult than it first appears. When deeply analyzing it, however, I realize I wouldn’t have it any other way. Just as there would be no light without dark, there would be no beauty in love without its pain and hardship. It is the complexity and duality of love that gives us the wonderful reward that is connection. 

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My name is Bethany Howell and I am a university student in my final semester of studying psychology with a focus on families and children. I have a passion for writing and mental health and my ultimate goal since age 13 has been to make a difference in the world through helping others, which is how I ended up here at Low Entropy!