Love and Happiness

This year has been the best year of my life - 2012 has been extremely kind to me, and I am VERY grateful for that! Not only did I find an awesome roommate and best friend, I was also given the chance to study abroad in the fall and I have been fortunate to have not only one but two stable jobs. I am blessed with great friends and a loving family. In all, I couldn't imagine having had a better year, and it's only June.

However, recently I've noticed an unsettling trend amongst my friends and acquaintances that occurs when I mention that I'll be studying overseas. Typically the first thing people say when I tell them (after, "Where will you be going?") is "Wow, I cannot wait to meet the beautiful Italian boy you'll fall in love with." They usually then proceed to tell me about a cousin/friend/coworker who went to study in some faraway place and came back with a fiancee. While this is kind of sweet, and I appreciate the excitement about my currently-non-existent love life, there's kind of an underlying pressure here: "Hope it goes better for you over there because America clearly hasn't been cutting it for you."

Frankly, I think this is just silly. No one ever mentions how exciting it is that I will have the world literally at my feet - I can travel to any country that I want, and I can do it by myself. I am self-sufficient, I am in control, and I am learning how to take care of myself. No one ever mentions how cool it is that I get to pick up a third language, one that mere weeks ago I couldn't even say "Please" and "Thank you" in. No one wants to talk about how much of a headache it is to get visa papers in order, or how much fun it was picking an apartment to live in, or even what kind of classes I'll be taking. All anyone (not counting my mother or my roommate, because let's be real, they usually say the right thing) wants to talk about is my impending romantic affair with some brawny, scruffy Italian man.

And sure, perhaps that will happen. Maybe I'll get over there, and some guy will be really, really impressed at the amount of pasta I can eat in one setting (as a side note: I've been training for this my entire life), and we'll fall madly in love and we'll be happy together for a long, long time.

But in all reality, that could just as easily happen here. I could be sitting in Fazoli's scarfing down my sixth breadstick when some man suddenly approaches me and compliments me on the rockin' bod I've managed to keep while eating eight times the normal carbohydrate intake for someone my age. No one knows! No one has any idea what this trip is going to bring for me in terms of the relationships I form, and in all honesty, I'd prefer people just kept their far-fetched ideas of an 'exotic love affair' to themselves. When I deign to enter a relationship with a guy, it's going to be because he is awesome, and he wants to travel with me, and he loves me for who I am. He's not going to be my protector, he's not going to be my financial provider, he's not even going to be my best friend. He's going to be a guy that I'm in love with - asking him to be anything else is a lot of pressure to put on one person. When I find that guy, he's going to be sweet and he's going to love the silly things about me that most people don't like and he's going to make me believe that he truly is "the best thing that ever happened to me," like Ray LaMontagne says.

Going to a foreign country isn't about finding a boyfriend. It's not about settling down with some rich prince, or whatever people seem to think happens when a college girl goes overseas. It's about me figuring out what I need to be happy, and figuring out if the plans I have for my life are really possible. If a boy happens to saunter in while all that is going on, then fine! I'm happy to have him there. But I just wish it weren't the first thing people ask about.

This guy, whoever and wherever he is, is going to be fantastic, and I am sure I am going to love him more than I can understand right now. But he is not going to be the motivation behind my every move. He's going to be what he's always been, what he was before we ever met: another human being. One with hopes and dreams and excitement about the future. He'll just have someone to share it with.

One of my favorite lyrics is from the Mumford and Sons song Sigh No More: "Love, it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free; make you more like the man you were made to be." I've done a lot of thinking and a lot of observing over the past few months in order to figure out what I think a healthy relationship should be, and this lyric sums it up better than any words I could use. Love is finding someone who can give you what you need and teach you about things you didn't understand. It isn't about having money or being exotic or even being 'the perfect couple.' It's about being happy, and if I manage to find a guy who makes me feel as happy as I've been this year, whether he's from Milan or Milwaukee, I'll know I'm doing things right.