If you don’t like cheesy, hopeless romantic-type stuff, this is not the post for you. Consider yourself warned.

Typically, I try to avoid emotions. Don’t get me wrong, I feel happy, sad, tired, anxious, joyful, and all that jazz. But when it comes to “love” and the “romantic realm,” I try to avoid it all together. I love to dream. I love to pretend I’m going to end up with various celebrities like every other person on this planet, but when it comes to actually having “feelings” for another person, I shut down.

I am scared of a lot of things. But there are two fears that terrify me to my core, and that define every choice I make. Those fears are rejection and abandonment. I don’t like opening myself up to even the potential of being rejected or abandoned, so I self-isolate. But unfortunately, much to my own anxious dismay, feelings have arisen. Yes, I say unfortunately. Yes, that was slightly sarcastic.

WARNING: This is pretty much where the hopeless romantic takes over

I’m not a big believer in love at first sight. While it wasn’t necessarily love at first sight, you might say it was love at “second sight?” The second time I met this person, they lit me up inside. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so happy just by being around another person. But I also freaked out internally. I remember acting very squirrely for the rest of the time I was around that person that night. I later apologized to that person’s friend for acting so strange. I rationalized it by saying that the person “reminded me of someone I knew” and that it was just weird. It was weird to be around this person. It was weird because I felt something real. I felt something that I couldn’t rationalize away, or put into a neat little box.

So of course, I did what every teenage girl does when they develop a “crush,” if you will. I turned to my favorite musical artist and began listening to their love songs on repeat. My artist and album of choice? Sing to Me Instead, By Ben Platt. Tracks of Choice? The first four tracks on the album: “Bad Habit,” “Ease My Mind,” “Temporary Love,” and “Grow As We Go.” Mostly, I want to focus on Temporary Love. Right below this, I’m linking the lyric video to “Temporary Love.”

You don’t have to hide your love away and I know that I’m going to make mistakes and leaning on somebody isn’t easy, but I’ll do what I can to make you see that This is Not a Temporary Love.

That one line. I can’t get that line out of my head. This is Not a Temporary Love.

What I feel is real. I tried my hardest to ignore what I felt. I tried my hardest to make it “go away.” I tried my hardest in every way to make myself feel nothing, and I failed.

Feeling Emotions is hard. Accepting Emotions is harder.

I really don’t know what’s going to happen from here. Maybe I’ll continue to shut down and try to ignore my feelings. Hopefully that won’t happen. In a perfect world, everything ends “happily ever after.” But we will just have to see.

This is Not a Temporary Love.