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By Nila
There’s a senior in one of my classes at school. Whenever he needs to introduce himself, he’ll stand up and say: “My name is Danny and I am in love!” Of course, everyone has asked him at one point or another, “Who are you in love with?” Every time, he’ll smile and answer: “I am in love with love!” “I am in love with everyone and I am in love with life”. Most people just laugh this interaction off and walk away, but I think there’s something admirable about his take on life.
Over the past year, I’ve had some friends who have struggled with loving life. I’ve even had one friend who fell so out of love with life that she tried to take her own. When you watch young children play, they are so fascinated with everything around them, and every new experience is an exciting adventure. I think the older we get the more cynical we grow, and we stop seeing life in that beautiful light we did when we were younger. I’ve known my friend since elementary school, and I remember when she wrote stories, she could paint a vivid picture with only a few words and could create entirely new worlds with a flick of a pencil. As we got older, I saw her face conflict after conflict, and her stories slowly started to get less and less beautiful. She stopped writing about new worlds and young love and started writing about death and loss and feeling suffocated. She was still an amazing writer, but she had lost that spark and love for life.
Watching my friend go through this, I realized that throughout our lives, we can get beaten down and feel lost or alone. But it’s in these times of doubt that it’s important, though hard, to see the beauty in life. Even if you need to stand up and tell the world that you are in love.