I once told you that love is not an idea but an experience. It was a few months ago, I remember pointing at the windows of the café while you took a bite of my sandwich. You nodded and I continued. Some people adore the idea of love, the illusion of perfection, the company of another, the seemingly never ending abyss you get to explore. They stare at others and envy with passion, they gaze into the mirror and wonder why no one else has fallen in love with their reflection. They claim that they know what love is all about just from sightseeing and observing. But I tell them, you don’t know a thing about love. Love is a storm, love is a drought, love is a sum of all four seasons. I pointed to a red car in the distance. Many of us don’t fall in love. We are passengers in a car, with our foreheads pressed against the windows, tracing raindrops as they run down the glass, mesmerized by the sudden lightning that shatters the cement, sitting so comfortably while others outside freeze as they walk down the sidewalk. But we are not experiencing love. As passengers, we don’t feel the rain seeping into our hair, we don’t feel the snow melt on our palms, and we don’t feel the sun burning our skin. To be in love, we must endure the spring, summer, fall and winter of our hearts. The beating of our hearts must become so loud that they are rather sounds of drums. When we’re angry, they’re on fire, pounding so loud that you can feel your heart beating out of your chest. When we’re hypnotized, they beat in sync, like crickets on a quiet day. I felt your fingers on mine as I turned around to find that you were smiling. But as I stand here, now, hair drenched in rain and beaten down by the storm, I question whether or not you ever stepped foot out of your mother’s car.