What I Know About Love Stories

Lesson #1

Lesson #1: There is no such thing as falling in love. Sometimes you are just falling.

I had awoken to a cheerfully annoying sunny morning. To be honest, I’m not really a fan of sunny mornings. Nothing exciting and daring happens on a sunny morning. Most really good stories start with a dark and stormy night. Some of the best tales of romance begin with a travel through some creepy dark forest. Take Beauty and the Beast for instance. It won an Emmy for a reason. Either way the bright, sunny day didn’t appear to be very conducive to me finding my prince. Considering the later events of that day I should have known it wasn’t meant to be if the day started out so damn cheerful. Of course my entire focus was at school during that time so I was definitely distracted.

School is my reason for breathing. I know most kids hate school, but that’s not true for me. School is where I thrive—well not socially, but is that really important? I never went to school to make friends. I went to school to become more successful so I could take care of not only myself but my mother. It’s always been just my mom and me for my entire life. Now that I think about it my mother’s own failed love life should have kept me from being such a strong believer in epic romances.

My mom doesn’t date. Ever. Or if she does date she has kept it well hidden from me all of these years. And she has never spoken to me about my father. There are a lot of other kids in school with single parents, but their parent always gave them an explanation for their missing parent. Even that old line about how their mom or dad “just wasn’t ready to be a parent,” but that they “still love” them. Mom never talked about my father like that—or at all. Once when I was seven I asked here where my father was. She pretended not to hear me as I repeated the question for over an hour. I learned to never ask about him ever again.

Even with a shady romantic past like that my mother was still a diehard fan of romance. She soaked up every sappy tale anyone put into print or film. She was the one who filled me with the dream of someday finding my perfect mate for life. She was the one who gave me all those unrealistic expectations of finding my perfect prince in a sea of people one day. I know I should be mad at her for my obsession with cheesy romance, but I cannot because she also gave me something else.

What my mother gave me was the knowledge that the one thing that is as strong if not stronger than love is faith. She always had an unwavering faith that our circumstances in life would get better. Mom never gave up on her belief that she could change the world to make me happy. So no, I wasn’t mad at my mother for encouraging me to believe in the power and thrill of a good love story. She only ever wanted me to be happy. There is a reason all my friends—well friend—consider her to be a “cool mom.” I honestly think my friend Kelsi comes over to see her rather than me. That’s why it was not at all surprising to find my best friend sitting at our kitchen counter eating waffles while happily chatting with my mother.

“Morning lovebug,” my mother cooed as I made my way into the kitchen. “I made chocolate chip waffles with homemade chocolate syrup!”

“Mom,” I replied with a roll of my eyes. “All that refined sugar isn’t healthy. Kelsi will have a sugar crash by this afternoon thanks to you. I’ll just have my Grape-nuts.”

“Kelsi likes them,” she pouted.

“That’s because Kelsi is a bottomless pit who will one day be the size of a house due to her poor eating habits that you have encouraged since she was young,” I shot back as I poured my bowl of cereal. I love my mother, but would it kill her to make something without a pile of sugar in it? “In fact, I’m still positive she’s the one who ate that family size lasagna that disappeared from the fridge last week.”

“Love you too Ruthie,” Kelsi smirked as she finished another waffle. “And that lasagna was not family size.”

“It’s Ruth,” I corrected her as always. “And mom was saving that for our dinner you little piglet.”