Author’s Note: Hello! This piece was for a writing assignment for my ENGL 327W – Creative Non-Fiction course. Specifically for this assignment, we had to write it in the format of a reportage. I decided to write about love and how someone knows when they’ve experienced love. There is definitely room to improve on visualization and making the reader feel rather than me telling. Still, I hope you will be able to enjoy this piece and in a way resonate with it.
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How do you know when you’re in love? Being the recipient and the gifter of that question, it doesn’t feel comfortable in either situation. As the recipient, you have the burden of bestowing new knowledge to that person, but how do you know that what you experienced was love? And as the gifter, you ask a question that is so broad and profound that finding the starting line to begin answering the question is quite difficult. “Like, what type of love do you mean?” This is usually the first question I get back from people to clarify my question. But for the longest time growing up, I didn’t understand why there is a difference in love. How different can other loves be from each other? The love that interests me most is romantic love. The type of love that transcends space and time…(well, maybe not like that as it’s probably going overboard with it), the type of love that butterflies flock to and that is falsified with Disney Princesses and Prince Charming. Other loves just didn’t appeal to me, not yet anyways.
“When are you getting married?” The first time my grandma Zoua asked me that question was when I was 14 years old, that first conversation was filled with tears from my eyes and tears in my injured heart. Over time with calmer dialogue and cooler heads (more on my part), that question became less of a burden to answer. I learned that she wanted me to get married young so she could see and hold my kids… her great-grandchildren. I already had older cousins that had fulfilled that for her, but she would not be satisfied until she saw and held mine. That is what happens when you’re the favorite, dark hidden burdens are bestowed upon us and we carry them without knowing. Only when revealed to us do we know how heavy those burdens are. I knew I was going to disappoint her as what I wanted didn’t align with her aspirations for me. We were stuck on an impasse, me wanting kids that are interracial, and her wanting kids fully Hmong.
Grandma Zoua has that old-school mindset of being conservative and hates change. She was always distrustful of the land and home she migrated to, the United States of America provided her and her lineage with opportunities for a better life. However, she could never fully trust it, which included people outside of the Hmong culture. She had preconceived prejudices already made about non-Hmong people. Can you imagine her rage and shock when her favorite grandchild said he wanted interracial kids? Fast-forward two years later, I was naive and rebellious while Grandma Zoua was weak and brittle. However, she always had plenty of energy stored away to ask me that question. “When are you getting married?” I know how this ends already, we would go back and forth (politely) until reaching the impasse where emotions were high and logic was really low. Her stubbornness would make stains on clothes seem like child’s work. If you were going to convince her of her view, you had better be able to make the sun and the moon join together as evidence. We indeed reached the impasse, but this time Grandma Zoua’s eyes had other plans.
Luckily, the sun and moon were with us in that cramped living room that day. She asked, “How do you know when you’re in love?” which took me completely by surprise as she’s never asked me that question before. Seeing how I was having difficulty answering the question she decided to answer it for me. “You’ll know when you’re in love when you want the other person to be happy. There are many types of love out there in the world. Love for yourself, love for significant other, love for family… it takes many shapes and forms.” She would go on and say how she’s fine with me having interracial children in the future ending with a phrase that I have kept since then. “As long as you’re happy and you both love each other, I’ll be happy too.” I couldn’t tell if she truly believed what she said or if she said that to make me feel better.
Love is never that simple though as I’ve learned through first-hand experience and talking with various people. Because love does many things when people are in that state. It’s as if the person in love becomes intoxicated and addicted to the person they’re with. If these two people in love were to be separated, it would cause relapse and withdrawal. Emotions are sky-high, and logic in a way goes out the window accompanied by their inhibitions. This leads to the people in love planning for the future. Maybe it’s the old-fashion vision of the white picket fence on a little hill with children running around that comes to mind when people are in love. Love is a feeling but chemically, brain activity increases for these individuals, and this could vary based on how long someone has been in love.
There is no right or wrong answer to the question. It’s a mix of personal experience and science at work. It’s different for everyone and everyone could have a different answer for a particular love. Some people enter the world of love and find out how ruthless it can be. Love is a game to some people and for those who are willing to participate in the game, they won’t be the same once they’ve exited the stage. The true answer might never be found but we have small truths that can help us understand this a little more. So, how would you answer it? How do you know when you’re in love?
Hello, I would appreciate it if you would give me feedback on what you enjoyed and what you didn’t. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to comment or email me too! Thank you.
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