Love can be such an easy thing and such a hard thing all at the same time. Almost everyone wants to find love, but that isn’t always easy, especially today. Movies and books do an amazing job of portraying love in such a romantic, effortless way when in reality it can be pretty hard and messy at times.

I, like many other women, spent many of my teen years trying to find love for myself, but things just never would fall into place. I wanted that storybook love like all the princesses in my favorite Disney movies. The love where a handsome man just comes in at the right time and sweeps you off your feet, and you end up living ‘happily ever after’ together. I often became frustrated and annoyed after failing so many times at trying to “find” love. My mom would always tell me “stop looking for love. You won’t find it,  love will find you.” She would also say something along the lines of “in order to love someone else you have to first love yourself.” Of course this would just annoy me because I’m not good at being patient and just waiting, but eventually,  I decided to take her advice and stopped trying to seek out love and started trying to love myself first.

Once I stopped trying so hard to find love, I found it easier to focus on myself. I decided a better use of my time would be reaching some of my own personal goals, especially my fitness ones because I was never comfortable in my own skin. With lots of dedication and hard work, I started to see some results. In turn, I started to become a healthier, happier, and more positive person!

College was around the corner for me, and I had officially been admitted to my top choice school, High Point University. It was also the only college I had actually applied to… so it was a very stressful few months waiting to hear back. They added me to the class of 2018 official Facebook page, which was a great way for me to get to know some of the other kids I’d be going to school with. Little did I know, this was how I was going to meet my current boyfriend of 2 and 1/2  years so far. Long story short he had posted something about himself, and I thought he was one of the most attractive guys I had seen. He wanted to get to know some people, which was great because so was I. My best friend convinced me to message him and say hi. I did and anxiously awaited a reply. Almost instantly he got back to me. Before I knew it, we would be up texting into the wee hours of the night almost every night.

I knew almost instantly that we had a really unique connection. It took him a little more time to pick up on this, but eventually, he noticed the connection as well. We officially started dating long distance until we could finally meet. When we met in person though it was like we had known each other for a long time, it was honestly the craziest feeling I had experienced.

BUT my mom was right as she often is, love had found me. It took my breath away and molded me into a whole new person. That fairytale love had finally arrived, and I was thrilled! I eventually learned this fairytale love was not without its fair share of disagreements, and complications of its own.

We are by no means a perfect couple, and we definitely have our ups and downs. My boyfriend has helped show me that you can still have that fairytale love even with disagreements because at the end of the day, even after a bad fight, we both know our love is stronger than anything else, and we truly value each other more than we care about being the one that’s “right.”

The most important thing is being with someone who loves you for you and accepts you even with all your flaws; someone who at the end of the day still loves you to pieces even if you just had a really bad fight. Loving someone can be easy but also really hard. The key to getting through those really hard days with your significant other is remembering that the love you two share is deeper than anything else, and its something you BOTH want to make work in the end.

Thanks for reading!

Stay Golden,

Nicole ❤