Everything I Know About Love

The terrifying and liberating act of being real

Hello to my beautiful and wonderful readers! We have just celebrated two whole years of Glimpses of Gracie! Wow! This of course means ringing in another year of life for me as well, and I have been so blessed to celebrate turning 22 with my sweet family and receiving messages of love from the friends who have become my family. This life has been such a gift to me, and I don't intend to waste it. When I sat down to write this blog post, I originally had an entirely different idea and goal in mind. I wasn't being authentic and real and honest in my first draft. I went for a walk in my quiet neighborhood today and decided that there was no point in having a platform like this to share my thoughts if I wasn't going to be real. When Instagram feels superficial or Snapchat feels childish or LinkedIn feels performative or Pinterest feels cheesy or TikTok feels entirely pointless, this blog has been my escape and my refuge. My place where I can just be Gracie. And it is my earnest dream that my readers feel safe to be themselves here too!

This blog post is extremely vulnerable for me, but I also consider myself to be a pretty vulnerable person. I describe myself as an open book, and no one has ever described me as "nonchalant." And honestly, thank God for that. In a society that puts "chill" on a pedestal, I am forever grateful to defy that norm. Another person who defies this norm is one of my many heroes, Dolly Alderton. She is the brave and witty writer of one of my most favorite books in the whole wide world: Everything I Know About Love. The book is full of essays and recipes and stories that have reshaped the way that I think in so many ways. She rips my heart out and makes me laugh and overshares constantly. Many people who are not fans of this book claim that it reads too much like a diary... well, good! I would like to hope that my blog reads a bit like a diary too. This is my little digital diary, a piece of my heart that I get to share with all my most favorite humans. I get to offer a glimpse to all of you of the shenanigans that occur in this silly and chaotic brain of mine.

It will likely come as no surprise that one of the things which occupies the most room in my mind is love. It's a common pattern for me to talk about it on this blog and contemplate its purpose in daily conversations. I am a firm believer that love makes the world go around. However, the older I get, the more I begin to understand the complexities and idiosyncrasies that make love all that it is. I find it endlessly frustrating that we use love as this all-encompassing word to describe such a vast array of feelings. I learned recently that Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language, is often cited as having the most words to express the concept of love, with around 96 distinct terms. While other languages like Tamil also have a rich vocabulary for love, Sanskrit is particularly known for its nuanced expressions related to different aspects and intensities of love.

96?!?! And we only have one? It seems so unfair! But the more I sat and thought about it, the more I realized that maybe I have missed the point entirely. I think that happens to me a lot when it comes to love. I can become so wrapped up in one way of thinking that I miss out on other perspectives and surprises. Such is the case for me with the big one: romantic love. I would be dishonest if I said that this line of thinking did not take up the bulk of my time. I have discussed romantic love (and all of my shortcomings where it is concerned) with best friends, family, coworkers, travel companions, bosses, therapists, mentors, priests, ministers, friends' parents, suitemates, ChatGPT, and in the mirror (frequently). I have read poems and listened to podcasts and screamed love songs and talked my friends through a whole multitude of madness, but it never seems to be the right time for me.

"When you finally stop looking for it is when it will find you" is perhaps the biggest load of sh*t I have heard this past year. How I am supposed to stop looking for it when I am surrounded by it? How am I supposed to find my person? Is my person even out there? Is he looking for me? Am I doing something wrong? Am I not approachable enough? Am I not funny enough? Am I not smart enough? Am I not pretty enough? Ouch. That last one always hurts no matter how hard I work to convince myself that I am. It sucks. There's no sugarcoating it. It's the worst. Stop looking? You're talking to the girl who grew up watching Disney movies which became Hallmark movie marathons which became classic rom-coms. What do you mean stop looking? I have been looking since I learned that there was someone out there for me to look for!

I have this list. It's sort of a party trick of mine. If nothing else, it is a 100% guaranteed conversation starter. And maybe "list" is underselling it a little bit. I have an 161-item checklist of "Things I Need in a Man if I am Going to Marry Him." It all started when my AP Psychology teacher in high school asked us all to come up with the ten nonnegotiables we would need in a life partner. And, like the classic overachiever I am, I have been adding to it ever since. So no, it is not arranged in order of importance. And no, I am not going to decide not to marry some guy simply because he is not "a passionate Christmas tree decorator" or if he doesn't "like Mayo." A pattern I have noticed is that guys usually think it's funny until these parameters stop applying to them. Then I start getting called names like "picky" and "high maintenance." Everyone seems to agree that my standards are tremendously high, and many people like to remind me that this list is "never gonna happen."

Going into college, I was confident in my list. But as more and more of my friends found their person, I started to believe that my standards were too high. For what it's worth, I know that it is statistically very, very unlikely that I will find someone who fulfills all 161 things. And that is more than okay with me. The list serves as more of a symbolic promise to myself that I know what I deserve. It's really hard to remember that. It is hard to remember that when I'm hearing endless stories about frat formals and getting drinks bought at bars and Hinge dates and coffee meet-ups and gym sessions and who's liked whose Instagram story. It's hard to remember that on every National Girlfriend Day and every Valentine's Day and every time I watch a guy walk out of Trader Joes with flowers.

When I was a sophomore in college, I spontaneously went to a Hunter Hayes concert with some of my favorite people. It was there that I first heard his song "Everybody's Got Somebody But Me." Man, I feel you! I'm at a point in my life when I feel as though I have so much love to give and no one to give it to. This past semester, I was really caught up in this little pity-party of mine. I was crying very publicly on campus on the phone with my mom. She's so wonderful, and she's had a very fascinating line up of boyfriends in her life before meeting my dad. To be fully transparent, it's a big insecurity I have by not being able to relate to her, so I always try not to mention my lack-of-love-life over the phone. But she's my mom, and she knows me better than I know myself, so she immediately caught on to the way I was feeling. And it was then that she told me something that I have written down in every journal I own: "I admire you. I admire how you refuse to settle for anything less than the right guy." My mom, my ultimate source of inspiration for everything I do and the classiest woman I know, admired me. She liked that I was picky and high maintenance, and never once did she say that I should lower my standards in the slightest. I am always going to remember that.

I write all this not to place judgment on anyone who chooses to date for fun or who decides to stir things up "for the plot." There are very few things in life that bring me the joy that a good Sunday morning debrief does, and I live for the stories my friends have to tell. I write all this because it is something that matters to me which I have learned about love. Something that I am reminded of often which I wish I could go back and tell myself a year ago (and maybe shake my own shoulders for good measure) is that my worth as a human being is not dependent on the male validation I receive. I'll say it again: my worth as a human being is not dependent on the male validation I receive. From the moment we as women are born, we are conditioned to be very aware of the way men perceive us at all times. We perform under their watchful gaze, and we are praised when we capture their attention. I fall into this trap constantly. The good news here is that I am not alone, and thankfully I have some very wonderful women in my life who will stop me in my tracks and remind me that my beauty has been there all along.

I shared my list recently with one of my mentors because her husband asked me to. I look up to them both very much, and he got a real kick out of hearing me go through the list. To my surprise, she turned to me and said "I love it! You're Gracie and you're worth it!" And that was all there was to it. And you know what? Yes! I am Gracie! And yes! I do believe I'm worth it!

Everything I know about love in my twenty second year of life can be attributed to the people who have inspired me the most. My first exposure to love was my parents. Not only were they unfailingly generous in their efforts to give me the most enchanting little childhood full of Disney princess themed birthday parties and sprinting through the sprinklers and scootering with our neighbors and plenty of pancakes, but they also bandaged every boo-boo, woke up for every nightmare, and allowed me to embrace all of my weirdness from the very beginning. Ann and Tim LaKose are my role models, and I would not be who I am today without them. As I grow older, I have learned that they are a lot more complicated than I would have understood as a child, but their nuanced experiences have given them exceptional worldviews that I truly admire. Always ready to lend a helping hand and talking to every stranger we encounter, I could not have asked for better parents. What a blessing it is to be able to say that!

And then my little sister came along. Anna to everyone else, but she will always be Annie to me. I have never loved anyone the way that I love her. Someday, I hope someone very special loves growing old with her as much as I have loved growing up with her. Somewhere in there, we lost one another a little bit. I was not the big sister I wanted to be, and she was in a very dark place. But then we found each other again. She's my person. I may not have found my husband yet, but I've known who my maid of honor would be all along. Through every early morning car ride and sports practice and going into her room just to annoy her, I count it all joy. Even though they may drive us crazy, thank God for little sisters.

And then there was loss. I think that love and loss go hand in hand. Loss makes love painful, but it also serves as the most powerful indicator that the love was real. Like love and loss, the lessons I have learned here are twofold. First Nick and then Grandpa. Nick Simard was my first ever true loss. He was a classmate of mine who passed away in sixth grade due to an undetected birth defect in his intestines which caused his body to ultimately poison itself. The unforeseen announcement shocked me to my core. It's hard to teach a twelve year old to process grief, but it's even harder to fathom that another twelve year old's life would be cut so short. Sometimes, I get really sad thinking about all the things Nick missed out on: graduating high school, graduating college, his first true heartbreak, his wedding, his kids who would be so lucky to inherit his sense of humor... it didn't seem fair to rob him of all the happiness he deserved. The day he died, I vowed to myself that I would live my life to the fullest because he never got to. Nick lived more life in one day than most of us do in our entire lives, and he taught me that you don't have to change the whole world in order to have a lasting impact.

Real life is messy and hard and imperfect and exhausting, but remembering Nick reminds me just how worthwhile all of it is. If a twelve year old goofball can change the lives of a whole community, just think of how much good we all can do! The ones who love us never truly leave us, and we are living representations of their goodness and love. In my moments of struggle, I think of my grandpa. He was strict and stubborn but he was one of the first adults in my life that I looked up to so much who simply believed in me. He was so invested in how I was doing in school and which passions I cultivated for myself. We had a very verbose email relationship which was how we stayed in touch when we did not see each other for months at a time. In one email he wrote to me, he said: "You know what I love most? I love Gracie just being Gracie!" The man who brought me to tears teaching me how to read an analog clock and how to do my multiplication tables is the very same one who gave me a standing ovation at my junior production of Peter Pan. He was truly one of a kind.

When we were going through their things after he and my grandma had both passed away, we found a big pile of papers. He had printed out every email I had ever written for him, and he annotated them. He had highlighted the names of the friends I had mentioned, and he had countless notes in the margins saying things like "ask her more about this!" or "when is this performance?" That's love. He made me feel so loved. My grandpa taught me that being intentional with how you care for others is the key to their joy. He taught me how important it is to show everyone in my life how much they matter to me. Hey you! Yes, you, my amazing reader! You matter to me! Thank you for taking the time to read this and showing me that I matter to you. My grandpa would love you, I just know it! Somewhere up in Heaven, he is smiling down at us right now.

And then there was God and Heaven and all my angels. As I learn and grow more into the woman I hope to become, my relationship with God has become a little more complicated. Life has been one spectacular sh*t show for me full of all kinds of unanticipated twists and turns. There has been pain but there has also been joy in complete and total abundance. I have no tolerance for people who claim that their religious affiliation gives them an excuse to be judgmental or hateful. The most beautiful faiths I have witnessed come from those who have a shortage of material things and a surplus amount of generosity nonetheless. The notion that there is some sort of higher power who loves me so much that He is always looking out for me serves as such a comforting thought. It's a wondrous thing to know that we have someone up there looking out for us and only ever guiding us in love.

My faith has led me to some truly remarkable humans. Their selfless service amazes me and their unending gratitude inspires me. They have this glow about them at all times because they understand that they are doing what we all have been fashioned to do: love. Whether it be the nerves I felt going into college or the uncertainties I felt in Tijuana, their love met me exactly where I was. These people have not only created a family, they have created a home as well. I do my best to be a wholehearted reflection of their love. I have experienced this complete and utter amazement many times in my teens, and it has taken my breath away in my twenties. The people who walk alongside me remind me that I was never meant to go through this life alone. Every "this made me think of you" text message and hug that has lingered just a little bit longer reminds me that this life is oh-so-precious.

Exploring different corners of the world and venturing outside of my comfort bubble has brought me a love I never knew existed. Whether that be traveling twenty minutes from my university to the US/Mexico border or boarding a fifteen hour flight to live halfway across the world for four months, I have been so fortunate to experience love in such a profound way. This one is love that transcends borders and languages and cultural differences, this love showed me that home has always been so much more than a place and travel companions have become my family. How tremendously remarkable! It is perhaps the most beautiful thing to be able to leave a piece of your heart wherever it is that you may go.

And sure enough, I was so lucky to be able to bring that love to another summer at the beautiful Camp Wamp. This is a summer camp for kids with physical disabilities run by the Stephen J. Wampler Foundation, and it is the single most magical place in the world! And I am a self-acclaimed Disney adult, so this is very high praise coming from me. To watch my new friends do things I take for granted every single day that they thought they may never have the chance to do fills my heart with so much love it feels like I might burst! Whether it be watching a camper with cerebral palsy ring the bell at the top of the rock wall or splashing around in the lake, it is so clear to me that this place is very special. Divinely orchestrated, I have decided. These campers make me want be the very best because they have never seen anything less in me. They tell me I inspire them, but they have changed my life in ways I will never be able to fully put into words (and believe me, I've tried).

These campers will forever hold a special place in my heart, and so will this year's staff. We love to joke around with one another, but I have never felt more seen by a group of people in my entire life. Every week for five weeks, we begin our opening campfire by picking out "warm fuzzies," a tradition that takes place every year. The names of every staff member, camper, and volunteer are placed into a basket, and our camp director brings the basket around for each person to pick out a name. All of us then anonymously spend the week getting to intentionally know our person, and we make them a little gift accordingly. At the end of the week before our precious barn-themed dance, we all sat around the campfire again and surprised our people with these gifts we had put all this time into. It is one of the sweetest things in the whole wide world, and every week I smile so big that I wake up the next morning and my cheeks hurt.

This summer, unbeknownst to me, my sweet friend Solange picked my name. She is sunshine in human form and the most enthusiastic person I know. Sometimes, the surprise gets out (especially when friends have friends), but she managed to keep it a complete secret from me! I did not have the slightest clue that it would be her, so when she turned to smile at me, my jaw dropped. It was in that moment that she handed me a little white porcelain jar with a pink heart on the side. There was a pink clay lid she had made and tied on with a blue bow. The words on the side meant the whole entire world to me, and I will remember it for the rest of my life. She said the words out loud at the same time I read them on the jar:

"The 161 Things I Love the Most About You"

And that was it. I think I spent the next four weeks just absolutely glowing. She even categorized the items into "Adjectives describing you," "My favorite Gracie things," "Memories," "Things you can't live without," "Things you deserve," "Messages I have for you," and "Things that remind me of you." She is an angel on earth and that is simply all there is to it! Some of our friends even told me afterward that she took the time to double check that she had exactly 161 because she wanted me to know that I deserved to have exactly all 161 things. This love was unlike any I had ever experienced before. I will experience pain and sorrow and a multitude of difficult decisions as I move forward in life, but I know that so long as I love the way my sweet Solange has loved me, I will be just fine indeed.

Life is hard. It's messy and it's complicated and it will always hit you where it hurts the most. You have to give love away in order to keep it and it seems like you can never catch a break. The loss of people you care about will slice your heart in half and force you to face what you've been avoiding. Change is constant and unrelenting, and just when you finally feel at ease, it's time to uproot and start again. Time will only fly faster and faster, and the people you love will only ever get older. It's no wonder we turn to our phones and other material distractions to escape it all! Sometimes it just all feels like too much. Sometimes life is painful and scary and totally uncertain.

But it is this hurt, this pain, this fear, this uncertainty that makes love so beautiful. Love hurts because it is real. No love can be falsified. And if it can, it's not love. Love is the best and most vulnerable thing we do as human beings. Hearts are so easily breakable and yet we open them anyways! We are all together in this collective experience that will soften and harden us, giving us strength while simultaneously allowing us to be weak. We love people and it changes us for the better. Love can be terrible sometimes, but it also tells us that we are here and we are alive. Love is how we make the most of the limited time we have here. Love gives us passion and purpose and laughter and light! It's all love!!! That's all life is: love!

And thank goodness for that! So cheers to you! Cheers to us! Cheers to another year of living a life that is full of an abundance of love! This blog post has been a celebration of everything I know about love, and I know that I still have so much more to learn. I cannot wait to get started!

If you are interested in donating to the Stephen J. Wampler Foundation and helping make this magic happen year after year, you can do so here.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me, I hope you have enjoyed your glimpse of Gracie! :)