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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

I Love You Right This Very Second


Do you believe in love?

Insta-love, that is.


It's one of the biggest complaints about YA and NA books. You know the set up. Vulnerable (or angry...or hurt...or other adjective) girl meets troubled but sensitive smokin' hot boy and they immediately fall in love.

I'll be the first to admit, the whole first meeting, “I've-just-met-you-but-I-love-you-and-want-to-marry-you” is a little over the top. OK, a lot over the top.

But the other kind of insta-love? The kind where two people meet and sparks fly and suddenly they can't keep their hands off of each other?



Is that believable?

Hell yes.

Because I've been there.

No, I'm not in my early twenties anymore (thank God). But I remember my teen years and my twenties like they were yesterday. And, trust me, I fell in love faster than ice cream melted in the San Diego sunshine.

That rush of emotions. Feeling like every nerve in your body is on fire the minute your new guy touches you, lays eyes on you. Wanting to spend every waking minute with him (and every other minute, too...). Setting absolutely everything in life aside for this one person, this person you just met a week ago.

Was I the only one this happened to??

Was I the only one who daydreamed about a future with every single guy I dated? Did anyone else go out on a date or hook up with some guy and then go home and practice writing out their last name...with your own first name? Mine sorta looked like this:

Anna Shelby
Anna Fernandez
Anna Westwood
Anna LeMare

I might have had relationships where someone whispered "I love you" a week after we met. And I might have whispered it back. Because even though there was no way I could genuinely know every facet of every one of my boyfriends-of-the-month (or week...or day...), I loved what I did know about him--what he looked like and how he made me feel.

Insta-love is one of the beautiful things about being young. It's about embracing—fully—every single thing that happens to you. Grabbing it and holding on and running at breakneck speed. And, no, it ain't gonna last. It won't sustain. It'll run out of gas.

But it's there.

And for those few hours...or days...or weeks...it's one hundred percent real love.




Insta-love might not be what lasting relationships and marriages are made of. But it's absolutely real.

And I plan to keep writing about it.



4 comments:

  1. Insta-love DOES happen and it CAN last!! I am living proof of that!! My hubby and I met and we both fell quick and fast. Moved in together within a week, engaged within 3 months and married almost exactly a year later. And here we are, about to celebrate our eleventh wedding anniversary!! I can say, i am more in love now with him then i was all those years ago.

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  2. Becky, that is seriously AWESOME!!! Gives me chills (the good kind!!) to hear your story. Happy almost-anniversary! :)

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  3. I think the complaint with insta-love in YA is not only that it happens so fast but it is forever in most books. Not a dozen insta-loves lol Sometimes that works for me and sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the writing and story BUT I knew the first night I went out with my now husband that he was "the one". I was only 19 at the time but that was it for me (and we just celebrated our 26th anniversary this week) so I do believe it can happen.

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  4. Yay!! Another real life insta-love with a happily ever after! Congrats to you and your man, Karen -- that is fantastic!

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