an ode to the hopeless romantics

a valentine's day crossover from Faith Zapata and Sarah Cucchiara

This Valentine’s Day, Faith and Sarah wanted to write about loving love. In the spirit of Galentine’s, they combined their pieces into something bigger: a reflection of their different views of love, their experiences, and some of their favorite Valentine’s Day-esque media.

Think of this as their love letter to you <3

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Faith

Regardless of the circle of people I find myself in, I’ve always been the resident hopeless romantic. As I grew up, I think I was obsessed with romance as a concept more than the idea of experiencing it for myself. I devoured romcoms and books about love, but for some reason I always felt an impending dread when it came to discovering what it felt like firsthand. I still feel like this is somewhat the case for me, despite having had some romantic experience over the years. I guess maybe it has always felt safer to watch from the sidelines, because how could I get hurt on the field if I never got off the bench in the first place?

I’m not in a relationship right now, and I’m not on the road to being in one anytime soon. Sometimes I feel like I’m falling behind because of it, like I’m running out of time, when the truth is I have nothing but that. But still, it doesn’t stop me from feeling left out when I look around me and see most of my closest friends in committed relationships. It feels ironic to me, how I play both parts simultaneously: that of the hopeless romantic and token single friend. I understand that love exists in other forms, but sometimes it’s hard to remember. Recently, I’ve been holding off on writing about love in the way I usually do, because there’s been a question making rounds in my mind, as the international day of love approaches on the calendar: if love really is all around, then why hasn’t it found me yet?

from pinterest

But the truth is that it has, and it’s even found me as early as the second I was born. I feel that love has found me when I’m cramped up on the couch with my family, all six of us, holding our stomachs and catching our breaths in laughter at a comedy film. I feel that love has found me when I complain to my mom about something objectively trivial, but feels like the end of the world to me, so she treats it as such and gives me perfect advice. I feel that love has found me when I’m with my friends, most of us being based in different places now, but somehow carving out days to travel for the sole reason of seeing each other. I feel that love has found me when a text message that arrives just as I’m thinking of someone, as if love can transmit itself through the air like radio waves, finding its receiver with perfect timing.

Despite all of this love around me, I still want a life-altering, all-consuming, movie-worthy romance between myself and one other special person. Until I find it, or until it finds me, I think I always will. But I still feel an ever-persistent reluctance to dive into a capital-R romance based on the negative experiences that happened when I did try, coupled with my preference to admire from afar. I love to flirt. I love a good crush. I love talking to someone when we both know it’s mutual, but haven’t yet addressed it. And I love love, and the idea of being in love with someone. But to actually offer myself up that way, to fully trust, is terrifying. The liminal space that teeters on the in-between of loving is home to me. I’ve been beyond it, perhaps with the wrong people, and I know that shouldn’t stop me from trying, but ever since, there’s something that holds me back from taking that final step forward. With the right person, maybe that final step won’t feel so daunting to take. It’ll happen naturally, because it was always meant to be taken, because I was already headed in that direction, and so were they. That’s what I’m counting on.

I keep thinking about desire, not just for someone else, but for life. How wanting to be closer, to understand and to be understood so deeply, to feel more intensely, is a kind of romance, too. Even from my bench on the sidelines, I think I’m learning that observing with such hunger is to participate after all. Sometimes, I wonder if my love for romantic movies and books isn’t all about the grand gestures, but about the way they teach us to pay attention. To notice the significance in a lingering glance, a hesitant touch, the careful choices in wording. I’ve become a collector of these instances in my own life, making observations that might seem mundane to anyone else but feel like evidence of something earnest: we are all constantly caring for each other in ways too small to name. This is what being a hopeless romantic really means: not just believing in love, but seeing it everywhere, in all its subtle, yet endless forms.

from pinterest

Maybe I keep romance at arm’s length these days because I’m already overwhelmed by how many ways there are to love, ways that just don’t fit into the neat categories that I’m used to. But love itself is so vast, and transcends any category we can wrap our minds around. If we just step outside of ourselves for a moment, it’s so easy to see: the world is constantly offering itself to us, only if we’re brave enough to stay open, and to keep looking.

Sarah

The sun brushes against my cheek like soft kisses, tracing a path down my neck. Warmth seems to work its way inside of me, lodging somewhere close to my heart. Content and shaking off the daze of sleep, I turn over and glance at him, already awake, watching me with love and softness in his eyes. Maybe there is something like fate, a karmic force that pulls and tangles the strings of my life, but I silently thank the universe for finding me deserving of such a pure, wholly good love.

Paul and I make dinner together, he picks a song from the playlist I made and does a dance I’ve watched him do a million times, and every piece of me is pulled into his orbit. When Sofia calls me and we talk for hours about nothing, finishing each other's sentences and hypothetically making plans, my heart recognizes a feeling that’s unique to her. Strangers sit together in a cafe sharing a pastry and laughing quietly, their child in the seat between them and I suppress a smile. It’s nearly impossible to define love, to take the enormous feelings and transcribe them, but every day I’m met with little moments of intimacy, true representations of love and it feels clear and obvious.

Growing up, I read stories and watched movies where the heroine just knew what true love was. Kicking up a foot during a kiss meant that your partner should be in your life forever, there was no question of circumstance or compatibility, when you felt it, it was true. Love was always something fantastical, a result of eyes meeting across rooms, or family feuds keeping star-crossed teens apart, it was inherently romantic, soul-crushing, and life-consuming. Yearning for that kind of love was easy, my pink password-locked journal was full of pages I tried to manifest my future across. I wanted love and love meant a man who would jump out of a novel and straight into my arms.

from Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Ancient Greek philosophers had many ways of breaking down love, different words with their own meanings, each encompassing some form of love. Érōs is what we know as romantic love—it’s the passion between two partners, sexual desire, and appreciation of beauty within them. Philía is friendship love, the platonic loyalty we see in close friendships. Agápē is literally translated to affection, but it more broadly references spiritual love, or any kind of selfless, unconditional love. Storgē is familial love, natural affection; it’s almost always been used to describe the feelings between family. I don’t want to go on a tangent about linguistics, but it’s so beautiful to know that each word can mean something so unique, yet still exist under that big umbrella of love. Love is complex, it’s not just one thing. Each form of love is so unique, yet a person cannot exist without opening themselves up to and feeling all forms of love.

Love was everywhere I turned, I had blinders on, restricting myself to the caricatures of romantic leads and, as soon as I pulled them off, it became painfully obvious how much I misinterpreted during my failed attempts to recreate movie love. Friendships were as meaningful, as life-changing as the relationships I convinced myself were the picture of perfect love. Sometimes, they’re more than that, there’s a reason that they tell you to fall in love with your best friend, the connection, the love, it’s all a derivative of the pre-existing relationship you’ve built up. I’m endlessly grateful for the friendships in my life, they’ve taught me about the purest and happiest form of love I can experience.

At the risk of sounding corny, I really just love love. I gravitate towards stories that depict two people falling for each other, even if the circumstances aren’t right. When my friends come to me with stories of their crushes, I feel giddy– I’m a lovesick teenager whispering around the cafeteria tables again. My heart is constantly yearning– opening itself up to the intricacies and simple pleasures that love contains. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been born into a family where love was bestowed on me as soon as I came into the world, every day of my life has been lived knowing that I am truly loved.

from pinterest

When I talk about my relationship, I like to say that love came into my life when I least expected it, but in truth, I had so much love around me that it only makes sense that I found such an impactful love. At the same time I was falling for Paul, I was cultivating the long-lasting friendships with the girls I now see as my sisters, I saw them every day, our love for each other was easy and it was fast. They are the pillars that hold up the romantic feelings, each bit of them is so carefully intertwined in the foundation of my view of romantic love.

Warmth creeps into my heart, it’s in my veins, and all throughout my body. I know with every piece of me that this is what love feels like, I want to bottle it up and savor every drop.

Faith’s Valentine’s Day Media

Books:

Pop Song by Larissa Pham, Beach Read by Emily Henry, One Day by David Nicholls, Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

Movies:

Much Ado About Nothing (1993), To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018), Tangled (2010), 50 First Dates (2004), Plus One (2019)

Songs:

Acolyte by Slaughter Beach, Dog, Sidelines by Phoebe Bridgers, Here, There and Everywhere by The Beatles, Kind Of by Faye Webster, Head Over Feet by Alanis Morrissette

Sarah’s Valentine’s Day Media

Books:

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney, Talking at Night by Claire Daverley, ALSO Beach Read by Emily Henry (my favorite romance book for sure), Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (it is very personal to me)

Movies:

Emma (2020), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Before Sunrise (1995), Set it Up (2018)

Songs:

Love You for a Long Time by Maggie Rogers, Sweet Nothing by Taylor Swift, ALSO Sidelines by Phoebe Bridgers, Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac, Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer, More than a Woman by the Bee Gees

from pinterest

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Thank you so much for reading! We hope your Valentine’s Day is filled with love, however you define that.

Sarah & Faith 💌