Words by: Jude Corbet O'Rourke
Art by: Stephanie Hughs

In the last five years, I have been fortunate enough to have felt the deepest joy of falling in love three times, and all three relationships ended in the same way: international departure.

As I write this, I am still grieving the separation from my most recent partner and have spent many hours thinking about the meaning of love in my life, and how the end of these relationships have shaped that.

Through these relationships ending, have learnt that to love is to allow yourself to open your heart to fulfilment; to be vulnerable. To still, in the face of the pain that loss will bring, allow yourself to feel fully, to feel deeply, to let yourself experience every single aspect of the spectrum of human emotion. To not let the possible future pain force you to deny how you feel.

To let yourself love is to let yourself be alive.

The intense, deep and palpable pain that I currently feel, and have felt, is incredibly hard. write this with tearstained eyes. It is difficult to express. But I would never wish to not feel it. To wish to never feel this pain would be to wish that had never felt the love that caused it. The pain that I hold, in my heart, mind and body is a constant reminder that have loved, am loved, and that I can love. It is a reminder of the joy that I have felt, and it is a reminder that with time, I will be able to feel that joy once more. It is a reminder that I opened my heart fully, without restraint. Just as we cannot comprehend day without night, we cannot know love without the pain that its absence brings.

It is through this that we know we have loved, and that we can love.

Everyone that I have loved, be it romantically or platonically, will forever hold a place in my heart. No future love, and no past love can erase that. am the culmination of all those who have let me feel safe enough to be vulnerable; to love, to be utterly myself. I will forever be grateful to have been given the space to love, and I will always be proud of myself for never denying the chance to do so. I know that the pain that feel, that follows me as if it were my shadow will slowly fade. I know that I will fall in love again, when my heart decides that it is to be so. And when I feel that tug, those small indications, I will do so. I will do so fully, with all of my being, and with full knowledge of the possible pain that lies ahead.