It is inexplicable, overwhelming, exhilarating, frustrating. You cannot sleep or eat; suddenly the most instinctive habits are pushed to the far back of your mind. It is only when struck by a sudden pain and an audible rumble in your abdomen that you realize you haven’t eaten breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Shoot, the dining halls are closed. So you put on those hideous tan UGGs and sniff through the pile of laundry strewn across your desk in search of the cleanest shirt, preparing yourself for the hike to 7-Eleven – the only store open this late in this small town – to buy five bags of chips. The evidence will be gone by morning, so you don’t bother feeling guilty about the prospect of consuming so much fat.

As you walk, you envision his short blond hair spiked with gel. You see his bright blue eyes, his long nose, and the curve of his smiling lips. You long to feel his touch, to hear his deep voice whisper sweetly in your ear. A feeling of warmth replaces the pain in your stomach, and you are no longer hungry. You remember what he’s shared with you about his past, his family, his goals, and his failures: I’m not a man, but a boy with big dreams. You smile. You know he is in love with your mind, not your body. A cool breeze engulfs you like a wave of salty water. Goosebumps. How refreshing.

Is this love? you wonder. You begin to think about your previous relationships and how no one else has made you feel this way. Perhaps you will never understand or know love, but it doesn’t matter now. This is enough. More than enough – this is overwhelming.

<div align="center">• • •</div>

Hi Stef! See you have had a very “busy” weekend … Hope you found some time to study too … Stef, you were out till after 1 a.m. last night. Please don’t be offended if I wonder how efficient your work day was today!

I scrolled down to the end of the text, contemplating whether to reply. I knew my parents tracked me via the brilliant and loathsome invention of Find My iPhone, but this was just too much!

“What is it?” Sam asked.

I looked up; her eyebrows were knitted in an expression of concern. I rearranged my face, realizing the distress it must have shown.

“It’s nothing. My mom was just tracking me again last night.”

Everyone has their own way of showing love, but I was not fond of my parents’ approach. Fear of losing their oldest daughter caused them to cling to me, and rather than feeling comforted by their tight embrace, I felt smothered.

“If this is love,” I said to my roommate through tears of frustration one night, “then I don’t want to be loved by them.” I had just had a heated argument with my mother which I’d abruptly ended by a press of the “end” button. I knew she’d be even angrier at my having hung up so rudely, but I didn’t care. I needed to escape, and that red button was my only way out.

Perhaps I will understand how it feels to love a child one day. It must be overwhelming, wanting to protect the flower you have cultivated with such care and dedication. You’ve shed blood, sweat, and tears over one delicate and unpredictable individual. Despite all the lies I’ve told, the trouble I’ve gotten myself into, and the tears I have caused to fall from their tired eyes, my parents still love me unconditionally.

“I’m afraid that I will never find a man who loves me as much as my dad does,” my roommate said during one of our midnight talks. We lay in our beds, each of us a little bundle beneath our blanket, visible only by the dim light of the streetlights. Her fear was a valid one. We both knew that despite our anger and frustration at some of the things our parents did, we would never be loved as fiercely, as tenderly, and as unconditionally by anyone else.

There are different kinds of love. Each is on its own scale, but the love I seek – which I think we all search for – is the kind that causes us to do crazy things; the love that makes us selfless and irrational; the love that’s so intense, it brings us both joy and anguish. I want to be overwhelmed.