Almost exactly a year ago today, I was taking a weekend trip to Lyon, France, during my semester abroad in Geneva, Switzerland. I thought Valentine’s Day was more of an American Hallmark invention, but the city was decked out in red and pink along its main streets and forgotten corners to celebrate La Fête Des Amoureux.
I’ve been thinking about this trip not only because it was over Valentine’s Day, but also because it marks officially one year of my first serious relationship. It is also a year I’ve had arguably the most self-growth. It’s partially the experience of studying abroad in a foreign country and living on my own while speaking another language, it’s partially from galavanting across Europe, but I believe a majority of this change stems from being in a relationship itself. There’s a common idea that your twenties, especially as a woman, are the time to be single. That college is the time to be single. That you need to be on your own to find out more about yourself. What I did not know, until I personally experienced it, was that being in a healthy relationship was one of the most formative experiences I would have in college.
It seems paradoxical, the idea that we can learn more about ourselves in proximity to someone else. And a year ago, I probably would have said that self-growth and discovery happen when someone is not coupled and able to devote more energy and time to themselves. But I think there is much to be said about the way in which a partnership pushes you to be exactly that: a partner. It requires you to think more about how you carry yourself, how you take care of other people, how you like to be taken care of. And now, as a senior in college, it has helped me to think more about life after Colgate and what I want this to look like.
David Brooks, opinion columnist for The New York Times, describes falling in love as a young college student as his “most important educational experience” where “the self gets decentered and the things most precious to you are in another.” It’s the decentering that requires looking beyond the self to not only another person but the world they occupy. It’s not making your own needs secondary, but finding enjoyment in doing things for someone else. It’s someone remembering how you take your coffee. It’s wanting to scramble their eggs. It’s not a chore; it’s cathartic.
When I was getting lunch with a friend last week, she told me she feels I’ve become more sure of myself this year. And this certainty comes from not only having a better understanding of who I am now, but remembering all of the past versions of myself. Meeting someone new involves a fair amount of retelling of the stories that made you who you are today. I remember one night in my Geneva apartment, across my white melamine table, telling my boyfriend about how I used to ride horses when I went to sleepaway camp. It was a small detail, but something I almost forgot myself.
There’s a return to innocence in love — almost a childlike sense of wonder. I think in the age we are in, with its information overload, where it seems like there is little left to discover, it’s even more exciting when the world becomes anew. The mundane almost has a magic to it. Red lights and long lines don’t seem to be inconveniences when you have fun waiting for them. Life is easier and happier. And while I am sure I have felt all of these emotions in familial and platonic relationships, it is only now that I have engaged in this decentering that I am able to step outside of myself enough to appreciate it.
I’m excited for Valentine’s Day this year in a place of familiarity, with a new perspective. It’s been a year of letting go and holding on. It’s trusting myself enough to trust someone else. It’s falling in love with who we take with us on the journey.
