Is Hope Always a Bitch?

When you're young people say you have a fresh perspective on a lot of things. The beauty of being young is that you've not experienced life as much.  Which is true. But sometimes I believe when you're a middleman you experience it even more. To put it in simpler words, when two of your best friends fight and you're the mediator it affects you, when your parents fight it affects you, when you see your sibling being yelled at it might make you a tad bit happy depending on the situation but let's face it, it affects you. People fail to understand that.
Growing up, I was often the middleman and luckily have been able to learn a lot from it. All thanks to god. When you're growing up, you're at this in-between stage, you aren't a child anymore to not know what's happening but you aren't mature enough to understand what is. I was caught up in the middle of it all. My friends were finding boyfriends, people started confiding in me about their problems, I was around people who were hurting and suddenly I realized there's a whole different world outside of Disney. Unfortunately, it isn't as happy as I thought it would be. Maturity had its shortcomings. I was at an age where I fantasized about falling in love, having that perfect Rom-Com story, I would imagine a hunky fifteen- year- old boy standing outside my window with a jukebox I presume; people break out into a flashmob and he'd tell me he loved, or simply have the cutest high school sweetheart love story. You meet someone when you're in school and end up together forever. With the hopes of that, I had my first heartbreak. It wasn't pretty. A lot of people dismiss the idea of heartbreak when a young person experiences it and is often followed by "you're fifteen, what do you know about love or relationships?"
To an extent, it's true. But what people don't realize is, it is what we understood of love, that is what we were capable of and we dove into it heart first. We gave it our 10000%. So when it didn't work out the way we thought it would, the innocent, naïve person didn't know what to do. It was a whole different experience. I was sad, and I looked around me, hoping to find a happy ending. But instead, all I saw was unhappy relationships. Some were cheating, some were just toxic, some were abusive, and some had more ego than love in them and some were getting a divorce. When I saw all of this firsthand, I became scared. I stopped believing in the idea of ever falling in love, of finding someone who would be willing to stay and, didn't treat me like an option or a 'maybe', until one day I saw a couple in my society. Manjeeri Aunty and Pravin uncle. They have the most beautiful love story you could ever imagine. It's even better than 'the notebook'. They fell in love when they were fairly young but what gets to me the most is the way they have stayed in love for over twenty years. They're each other's biggest cheerleaders and best of friends. They succeeded together and have built a beautiful loving family together. I'm sure their life isn't perfect. Whose is? But, whenever you see them, you see a face full of love, smile lines instead of frown lines and just two people who value each other. When I saw that, I told my dad, I want that.
I started analyzing my thoughts and fears and I realized the easiest thing you can do is to give up and lose hope. It takes courage to hold on to something.  I came across this quote "love never disappointed you, the person did." That stuck. It made a lot of sense. Now, the reason why I am writing about this is that we've all been hurt in some way or the other. In this age of casual dating and one-night stands, I want to appeal to those who have given up. From what I have observed, we all want someone who is going to accept all parts of us, who is going to make an effort to stay, who wants to be your partner and who is going to count their grey hairs with us happily, but, we're all so scared and have accepted the scenario of it being a fairytale.
I don't know if I am right or wrong, I don't think anyone could be right or wrong about this, but I do have to say, everybody deserves to be loved and it's a hope worth holding on to. I don't know what I have in store for me, I am a nineteen-year-old who's never had a boyfriend but has managed to be heartbroken majorly. But I do know, love has never disappointed me, and I'd be happy no matter how my life turned out because I went in heart first just like the fifteen-year-old, naïve and innocent girl did. After all, if you're going to love someone, do it right. They deserve it.