The Importance Of Love In My Life

As singer-songwriter, Lana Del Rey, once said, “When someone else’s happiness is your happiness, that is love.” Love and happiness are two qualities that people seek in life; they are correlating factors in people’s lives, like mine, for example. In other words, these two qualities are part of the circle of life and many believe that having the two factors in their life will lead to a good life.

Most of my life, I had imagined a lively family, that would always be loved, as well as to love each other. December 2014 was when it happened. My parents had always been in love, they even had a movie that represented their relationship. Every day was to be a contented one, as long as our family was together. I felt terrible to have had to experience such grief when the joyous holidays were ahead of me. While I was eating dinner with my sister, the sound of yelling and the thumping of steps down the stairs made my heart drop. What was going on?

When I was a child, my mom would tell me that all of my prayers always came true, and I believed it. Anything that I asked for or could ever ask for would come to me. I had an amazing family who supported me, trustworthy friends, and my life seemed great. I would go to church every Sunday, as I stood in silence as I opened my heart to God and felt the thrill every time I opened my Bible in the morning before school. I believed that my life would continue to be as blissful as it was when I was a hopeful eight year old girl. I believed in God as a sort of magician who would grant my every wish and desire.

I tell myself the encouraging words by author George Sand, “There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.” I wish I could change, my pass an be able to grow up in the same household as my siblings.

Student, businessman, outgoing, dedicated, creative, and willing are just a few things that set me apart from other kids. I don't find myself as being a normal person. There are people who lead others, who set trends, who do things first, who strive to better themselves no matter what it takes. Then there are the followers, those who follow the trends set by the leaders, those who will do anything to fit in and be “cool”. I like to classify myself as a leader.

I was blessed with a happy childhood filled with good memories and a supporting group of family ,friends and teachers. However, by the time I was thirteen, I had constantly been getting into trouble in school and at home. I would get into unnecessary fights both on the playground and off. Texting has become the note-passing of twenty-First-century bullies and this was the way people treated me. At home, I would get into conflict with my parents because of the sad news of my grades. They cared about my future, but I didn’t. Growing up with an older brother who constantly did well in school made me feel inferior, isolated and lonely. It felt like my parents believed he would succeed, but that I wouldn't. Similar to the animated television series “Tom and Jerry” my parents would see my brother as Jerry, the innocent one, and me as Tom, the big cruel one.

As humans, we naturally have the desire to be loved, whether by family, a close friend, a significant other, and etcetera. Either way, we hope to have these important people in our life so we may share our deepest desires and have someone to listen to us when we go through hardships. However, as humans, we also have the ability to feel lonely when we don’t have someone to lean on. Fortunately, the answer to these problems of loneliness and desolation is simple: it starts with prayer. Prayer is not just and rambling off of memorized words that have no meaning, but a lifting of our minds and hearts to God in praise and petition in a relationship of love (Singer-Towns 185). All people are called to prayer, whether through thanksgiving, petition, or adoration!

Many experiences through my life have shaped me into the person I am today. Some of them are so insignificant I can't even place them, but others I will remember until I take my very last breath. I will never forget what happened to my family and I since the time my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. Because my grandmother had cancer for a good portion of my childhood, I became very mature, gained a new respect for people, and I have developed a new outlook on life. My grandmothers diagnosis made her very special to me.

Love is a tricky thing. I, as I’m sure many of us, grew up with the notion that happiness was an outside job, that I was not actually in charge of my own happiness. For me, I learned, through some really terrible examples, that I needed to depend on others to feel happy, fulfilled, whole, and so romantic love became very sticky. It became a game of trying to figure out what I needed to say and do to try and get the other person to do what I thought I needed them to do in order for me to feel safe, to feel that my needs would be met, to feel happy.

Life events and emotions go hand in hand. There have been many events in my life that had an emotional effect on me, whether it’s positive or negative. But there’s one event that I think about often, I am reminded of every day, and has also created a continuous feeling of happiness. To some an event like this isn’t a big deal. For me it was something that I had dreamt of for years.

Amid so much sorrow, how can love and hope endure? That is a big question, and I don’t know the answer, but I do know that love and hope and people can endure a heck-of-a-lot. Through a tumultuous childhood and just fighting to be alive, people can still end up smiling. I know from firsthand experiences.

I had always loved nature. I always played outside and ran around in the morning to cool off in the morning dew. It never failed to refresh me off on humid days. As a kid, I always found the best flowers that were the most beautiful and alive. My mom loved them. Not just, oh cause my kid gave me some dead dandelions, I’ll put them on display. She truly fell in love with them.

It can happen throughout the majority of a person’s life. Feeling like a zooming vibration moving through the skin and bones and crawling in the creases of your heart, love slithers and sleeps. Love is crucial in my life, and it changed me for the better. My grandmother, who passed away from pancreatic cancer, and my boyfriend Jordan, who has gone away to bootcamp for training, are two of the most important people in my life. He is my left and right hand, and she was the Books to my Bible, the perfect people in my eyes.

When my parents took me home from the hospital. I was brought to a nice clean house with two dogs named Kona and Jasper. I was generally in my crib as an infant. My mom deliberately made noise when I was trying to sleep to try to prevent me from being a light sleeper such as vacuuming for no reason and getting the dogs to bark. My parents used a gardening table as my changing table (this has little relevance, I just thought it was funny).

Going through hard times has made me stronger and realize what is truly important in life. Six years ago I lost my cousin, Michael, to brain cancer. We were very close; he was like a big brother to me. Experiencing this journey with my family has taught me to make the best of every moment that I have been given. Michael has been one of the biggest influences in my life. He inspired me to want to make a difference in this world and have a positive impact on the people I meet.