F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story ‘The Sensible Thing’ features a quote which I have taped onto my bedroom wall: ‘’There are all kinds of love in the world but never the same love twice’’. When I was fifteen and going through a Great Gatsby phase, this quote stuck out to me and it has ever since. Coincidentally, at fifteen, I also fell in love for the first time. What a complex era.
As Valentine’s Day approaches, it’s easy to think of love as a purely romantic notion, with chocolates and roses, with decadent dates and dances in the dark. And love can be like this, especially when you first meet someone, but I think that Fitzgerald was right: there are so many different types of love, and they are all complex, and all important.
As a twenty-two year old, romantic love is a relatively new concept in the tapestry of my life. It’s had a pivotal impact on who I am and what I value, but it’s not the be all and end all of the love I’ve experienced. From having my hand held as I crossed the road as a child, to knowing who I’d sit with at lunch in high school, to being a trusted confidant for my friends, I know that love is all around, and that its form can shift over time. I wanted to see what relationships teach us about love and how they act as stepping stones through our navigation of what love means. I don’t think the stepping stones will ever come to an end, and I believe we learn everyday what love is, but I decided to interview three generations of my family to get a good idea of what relationships teach us across the years of our lives.
Support and Trust = Love
You know you love someone, according to my grandparents, when you support them with trust and sincerity.
Believing in the people around you can be challenging for those who have been hurt in the past, and placing your faith in another person with their own motivations and desires is always anxiety-inducing. But it’s worth the risk, my grandfather says, because ‘’relationships are supporting each other. You love them because you want to help them’’. For migrants who settled in Australia in the 60s, familial support was paramount for my grandparents. They were disconnected from the majority of Australian families, and only found comfort and belonging with their siblings. My grandmother describes this as a scary and vulnerable time, when relationships taught her that love can be a frightening thing, that getting close to people meant risking being hurt.
This sentiment is relatable for many young Australians. According to studies, many Gen-Z and Millennials have a huge fear of commitment, stemming from feeling things deeply and being empowered to express their emotions, to feeling at risk with their mental health, resulting in shutting off from trusting others to begin with. This lesson is a hard pill to swallow: relationships have taught us that love and trust are a symbiotic force. You cannot love without trusting others.
Relationships Change; Love Deepens
There’s this common fear I believe many young people, including myself, hold – that we’ll become boring, our partners will want to leave us, and we no longer will have uniqueness. Like the Taylor Swift song ‘Nothing New’, ‘’what will become of me, once I’ve lost my novelty?’’ My parents have been together for thirty years. Their love has seen the changes of parenthood, lost employment, mortgage debt, grief and joy. And yet, when I asked both my mother and father what relationships have taught them about love, their responses were the same: ‘’It changes as you get older, but you love them even more’’. It’s a different love than the one you have when you’re twenty versus the one you have when you’re sixty. Sure, it’s still love, but relationships have taught us that love shifts. And this may be a cruel thing: sometimes love does need to be let go, and sometimes you have to love yourself before you can hold emotional space for someone else.
But other times, love changes and so does the way it reforms your relationships, whether they be with a romantic partner, a friend, or a family member – and that can be a beautiful and intricate thing. There’s a X post about an over-used plushie that oddly enough fits this lesson perfectly: to be loved is to be changed (thank you X user @tacticalcoquette).
Friendship Is as Important as Romantic Love
Not everybody wants to be in a relationship. Other times, life is too much and relationships are just not possible at that point. Regardless of if these situations apply, or if you’re happily coupled up, some of the best love in the world comes from your friends.
My father said that his best friend is like a brother to him. That he loves his friendship, and that their closeness is something he will treasure for life. For me, my friends are my rock. They keep me me.
If Sex and the City taught us anything, it’s that found families are integral and can be even more important than the one you’re born into. Just like Carrie, we all need a Samantha to keep us laughing, a Charlotte to keep us compassionate, and a Miranda to keep us self-assured. This lesson shows that relationships have taught us that love does not have to be romantic to be life-changing, it just has to be real.
Love Is Forgiving and Accepting
Your peace and self-worth always comes first. This is an essential thing everyone should remember in any relationship, whether it be with family, friends or a partner. But just as important as it is to love yourself first, it’s important to acknowledge that it’s everyone else’s first time in life, too. You make mistakes, so do others. Some mistakes are unforgivable, of course, but some are worth forgiving.
When I asked my boyfriend what relationships have taught him about love, he said that ‘’the small issues or disagreements are not worth losing love, they just need to be understood’’.
And that attempt to understand is the crux of it. If you know someone, you know their flaws.
As my mother always says, pick your battles.
The Grass Is Greener Where You Water It
Sure, it’s a little cheesy, but that lesson is my favourite. From celebrity crushes to book boyfriends, unrealistic standards are everywhere. Most partners can’t afford dozens of roses each week, or trips overseas, and some may not be able to cook lavish meals or write you poems. But they may work hard, treat you with respect, and show you that you deserve to be loved.
You’re always worth the best, undoubtedly. Sometimes, however, chasing perfection can make you realise that no one is, in fact, perfect. But they may be perfect for you. I truly believe that your relationships are better when you realise that you’re flawed, too. That doesn’t make you a bad person, it makes you human, and that humanity is shown in everyone you meet. Not every love will last and that’s okay, but if the love is worth working for, if it’s something that has the foundations of a life-long journey, it is worth the investment, the caring, the time, the attention. This lesson tells us that love works when you believe it can. Without faith, without dedication, it will fall apart.
Love. A romanticised notion and a scary confrontation. Something we all experience, whether we like it or not, and something we are all hurt by, in one way or another. Complicated, challenging, beautiful, uplifting, fun and transformative: love is a dynamic force that teaches us who we are.
These lessons have been learnt through years upon years of relationships. From friendships to family, first loves to life-long soulmates, love actually is, as the movie states, all around.
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