I’d heard about it so much that it had become something akin to white noise; so omnipresent and yet entirely disregardable. People would talk about it, movies and books would be made about it, companies would use it to advertise completely unrelated products, holidays and rituals and ceremonies would celebrate it- But I just couldn’t understand it in the way everyone else seemed to.

And perhaps I didn’t experience it the way everyone else did either.

So I didn’t try to understand it. I’d tuned it out.

Why bother trying to understand it? It seemed like a wild goose chase, so why seek it out if my time could be better spent elsewhere?

Did it actually exist? I’d supposed so. Though alien to me, it must have been more than some silly trope. It had to have been if it was so deeply ingrained into human culture that it showed up in so many aspects of society.

I’d surmised that perhaps there was an element of hyperbole to it. There had to be, because the mediums in which it appeared so often were vehicles for exaggeration and dramatization. It was memetic; one of those ever-present elements of human culture like salutations or dance.

There was, however, a part of me that wanted that experience- wanted to feel it. The idea of it intrigued me, like seeing a color I’d never seen before.

But maybe I didn’t have the eyes to see that color… 

It wasn’t until I met my true family that I understood.

That romanticized version of it wasn’t mine. It didn’t apply to me.

I didn’t find it in the places or the ways traditionally depicted. Instead I stumbled upon it thanks to someone I never thought I’d see again.

To that person, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you for giving me my happily ever after.

Thank you for showing me where I belong.

Thank you for being there for me when I needed you the most.

Thanks to you I can say the words I never thought I’d be able to.

I found true love.