candy hearts and cupid's darts

(I actually wrote this months ago and forgot all about it..however, in lieu of celebrating the holiest of hallmark holidays, I thought it appropriate to give it some loving)

It’s not all busy work. Sometimes homework is well, real.

A couple of weeks ago, my psyc. professor instructed my class to go home and jot down our individual definition of “love” on a piece of paper. I scoffed and snickered over what I orginally deemed a silly and quite trivial exercise. Love is...two people kissing, a father buying his daughter a red balloon, a shakespearian sonnet, a wedding ring, a freshly baked chocolate cake, a promise. And of course, the list could go on and on. But, I crossed all those out. They were all slightly off.

It’s easy in NYC to get sidetracked from finding or feeling love. Maybe it’s just a hallmark card or an assorted collection of pink and red candy hearts that we can mindlessly pick up at the local CVS after a tiresome day of work. Maybe I'm just a cynic but nowadays, it seems to me that real relationships tend to get traded in for cozy paychecks and stepping stones in the job place.

The city is fast. It’s fluid. It’s tempting to trade in our few precious moments in our heroic quest of the “one” for that ever so reliable mochachino expresso or an extra ten more grueling minutes on the stairmaster. We search for a job, an apartment, a roommate, a parking spot ...and where does that leave our love life? Where is that ever so lovable Cupid when you need him? Don't answer. Rhetorical question.

Seriously, get in line. Maybe if you are lucky you can spot your local sweetie at another outrageously crowded bar that is screaming fire hazard or amidst a quiet evening at home alongisde your trusty internet companion shuffeling through countless images of headshots hoping for that special someone to just jump out at you with a gleam in their eye and witty banter in their profile.

I’ve started to think that love is the missing puzzle piece for so many frenzied New Yorkers. It is the thing we take most for granted but the one thing we are so desperate to find, so utterly helpless to control. In the city that never sleeps, we have no patience. We yearn for an instant gratification, a quick fix to fill our hollow string of fleeting relationships. There is no time for patience, let alone, romance.

On my umteenth try to define “love”, I stopped counting. I crumpled up my juvenile doodle of a sunflower and scribbled down these four words.

Love is ..

A work in progress.

It’s a journey, a testament of wills and an ever evolving pact. It has a multitude of faces, of feelings, of fragrance.
It’s an investment that most of us are too scared to make or too busy to bother.

So, waiting for “love”?

Take a number.