I fell in love with a stranger once.

Actually, I fall in love with strangers all the time. Although, my idea of what “falling in love” looks like is much different than most people’s. And I’m okay with that.

For me, love isn’t elusive. I find love lingering in between simple conversations and quick hellos. I find love beneath the currents of pain, of grief, and of heartbreak. And it’s ironic because it’s often love itself that eventually causes the pain. But still, I love and regularly fall in love with strangers because I know that nothing lasts.

And I mean it when I say that it’s more worth it to feel my life pulsate in love than it is to reject such love in fear that it’ll be lost.

But I know that beneath that pain lives love—and love is never lost.

But loved ones are lost, conversations end, and we have to move on. And yes, we suffer because we are humans who feel deeply. (And just because some of us feel differently, doesn’t mean we don’t all feel deeply—because we do.) But we also suffer because we attach. And attachment is created from a place of lack. It comes from the belief that whatever it is that we are holding onto, we don’t have within ourselves.

Oh, but we do. Of course, we do. We have the ability to create all the love we’ll ever need in the world, but it takes courage to trust ourselves that wholly. But more importantly, it requires honoring impermanence. It requires recognizing and acknowledging that life is fleeting, relationships never last, and people die.

So, we might as well fall in love, right?

We might as well recognize that to love is to live. And that living in love means we are not living in fear because we are willing to fall.

And so, every day I fall in love with strangers. And I fall in love with every breath I drink, every cloud I watch, and every tear I cry.

Because I am alive—and that, alone, is something to fall in love with.

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