I grew up learning all about love and relationships both watching telly and my parents. On movies and series everything was amazing. No matter how hard it was at first, there was always a happy ending and love triumphed over all. My parents, well, they had a happy ending too. After years of fights and frustration, my mom left my dad, me and my siblings and went to live with her new partner. She wasn’t happy ever after, but the separation of my parents was good for all of us… except for my idea of love and my emotional balance.

As a 30-year-old man I didn’t do much better with the mix of concepts I had in my mind about how love supposed to be. I had a very long relationship that never matched the romantic story one were meant to live to find the love of their lives. I ended that and started my own quest for a significant relationship. I expected struggle and I got a lot of that. Shit loads of that, but no happy ending.

A year and a half in the journey for romance wore me out. Nobody warned me that finding love is as beautiful as it’s horrible. The search may become exhausting, and once you fall in love things won’t get easier. Because movies, songs, poems, they were all right: to love is the most amazing feeling one could have. What they forgot to mention is that it also takes out the worst of yourself. Insecurity, jealousy, sexism. The whole spectrum of negative emotions pour out of you like an endless fountain of challenge. Outdaring your demons to become the best version of yourself is the hardest task one must surpass to build a healthy relationship.

Right now I am entering Hell. This last few days my ghosts have come back along with whom I think may be the love of my life, the One. She came and went, leaving my heart broken in countless pieces that have taken me several months to put back together. Loving her feels good, and that’s why I took her back when she reached for me, regretful. But this choice haven’t come easy. The sorrow she caused me before is hard to forgive and forget, and the baggage she brings along is hard for me to accept.

I know that the path I’ve taken it’s not going to be a walk in the park. I already feel the first flesh wounds this battle is leaving on my heart and my head. Yet next to the bad there’s always more good. That keeps me up and running, hopeful on a future that’ll bring a healthier relationship, a better version of me and, why not, a happy ending like the ones I saw in all those movies when growing up.

PS: I think it’s also going to be therapeutic and interesting to express myself and my process on a new category in my blog, Real love quotes. My idea is to make some romantic quotes from a realistic point of view more than the classic cheesy way we are used to. Let’s see how it goes.