The Love Haters

by Katherine Center

“Do you have any idea how short life is? Even long lives are too short.

“Every time you have to be brave, you get to be a little braver next time. That’s what life is for.”

I won’t say that one kiss fixed every broken thing in my life. But I will say this: having someone stand up for you and then kiss you senseless by the water at sunset is a hell of a thing. Something quiet and forgotten and neglected in my soul got an undeniable dose of healing.

He was a person it was okay to feel safe with.

It really was the most incredible realization—and I felt it all the way from my brain down to my heart. I didn’t need a rescue swimmer to think I was beautiful. I could do that for myself.

I just suddenly understood in a whole new, sun-breaking-through-the-clouds way that even if we do eternally need and long and want to be seen … maybe the most important eyes doing the looking are our own.

The swells of the wind, the waving fabric, the steadiness of his grip … it all felt surreal, and alive, and like I was part of something larger than myself.

“You’re not not forgettable,” Hutch said then, like I was being obtuse. “You’re unforgettable.” I held my breath at that. Hutch went on. “You’re a TV jingle you never wanted to learn, but can’t erase. You’re a puzzle that can’t be solved—or a question that can’t be answered—or a dream you wake up from that feels like it really happened. But it didn’t happen. And it can’t happen. Because that’s not how dreams work.”

It’s called a time horizon—a sense of how much time we have remaining. For teenagers, it’s vast. It’s infinite. But as we get older, it shortens and shortens—and we can’t help but feel it. As it shrinks, it makes everything more precious. We appreciate the days more because there are fewer of them to come. And it’s really true. I felt it so much today. How fast it all goes. How much we have to be thankful for. What a miracle each breath is.”

“We don’t last forever, sweetheart. We’re not supposed to. It’s okay. It’s part of it all. I’m good for now, and that’s enough.”

Hutch nodded. “Love is the worst.” But he was smiling at me. “It makes you jealous. And possessive. And desperate. It upsets your orderly life. It haunts you, and worries you, and gets you drunk with your brother. It tempts you. It makes you say yes when you should say no, and it stops you from saying yes when that’s the only thing you want to do. It keeps you up all night with worry, and then makes you run out of fuel because you can’t stop searching for a woman on a sinking houseboat.”

I don’t know what shape time itself is, but I know our minds move through it in spirals—returning over and over to the mysteries that hook us, to the questions we’ve never been able to answer, to the pieces that don’t quite fit. It’s the same questions, over and over—and the only thing different is us.

All that hard stuff turned out to be good for me, in the end. It cracked me open. And you know that old saying about cracks: they’re how the sea breezes get through.

It was about the deep, enduring comfort that comes from looking at your life for exactly what it is, and exactly how it’s unfolded—and really seeing it. The past can’t hurt you now like it did then. The story of your life is always full of mystery. You can unfold it on a table like a map, and study it, and understand it in new ways. It’s not different, but you are.

That’s what no one ever tells you. You can look around with your own eyes. You can find your own details. Notice for yourself what matters—and decide what it means. It’s as true as it is life-changing. But the only way to do it is to do it.

We’re here to be alive. To keep going. To find all kinds of ways to thrive anyway. We’re here to feel it all. To love and cry and love some more. We’re here to rescue ourselves—and everybody else—in every way that we can.