Learning to Believe

A while ago, I learned life was only as complicated as you made it. If you want a simple life, then make it that way. It’s as simple as putting your dreams first and not getting caught up in the little things, as easy as spending time with those who truly care about you, and as straight forward as being proud of who you are. If you step back and look at your life, really look at it, the things you agonize over are easy to fix. If you’re not happy, figure out why and change it no matter how hard it seems. If someone repeatedly hurts you, find a way to walk away or give them one last chance. If something goes wrong, move on by doing things you love. If you have something you need to tell someone, take the risk and let them know. If you’re hiding from the truth, step out from the shadows and confront what is scaring you head on. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, make time for it and make it happen. And if you love someone, put aside all fears and tell them.

I was taught this as a young woman in my last year of high school by a little boy not over the age of eight. It was an early afternoon in January and I was sitting on the swings with my head in my hands as a light flurry of snow softly swirled down from the light gray heavens. My heart was heavy, and the few tears I had shed had frozen to my eyelashes in seconds. As the cold winds blew through to my bones, I had felt the utterly miserable day was a metaphor for what my life had become. Had the young boy not come up to me tentatively and asked whether or not the swing next to me was free, I honestly believe that not just my fingers would have iced over on that blustery day, but my heart would have frozen through as well.

Dressed in many layers of clothing with a blue snowsuit over it all and a bright red winter hat, I could barely see the young boy himself. After all these years, I can’t quite remember his face, but I do know he had rosy red cheeks to match his hat, warm eyes that had quite a mischievous glint, and a smile that lit up everything around him, including me, which was unusual to say the least.

When I told him that he was welcome to use the swing next to me, I got up to leave, but he put his small gloved hand on my arm and told me he wanted me to stay, which brought a smile to my face. For a while, there was a comfortable silence, with him swinging as high as he could go, all the while trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched him twist and turn within his swing, his happiness infectious.

Eventually, he slowed and came to a stop, turning his attention to me rather than the swing.

“Miss,” he said to me - me, a senior in high school - “Why were you sad earlier?” I couldn’t help but smile, really smile, at his earnest sincere expression, something I hadn’t done in a long time.

“What makes you say that?” I said, hoping to end the conversation before it started.

“Miss, I might be young, but I know as well as anyone else that when people are crying, it’s usually because they’re sad.”

“You’re a wise boy,” I told him, not knowing at the time that he was, in fact, the wisest person I would ever meet. “Well, the truth is, I’m not exactly sad. I’m just angry, really.”

He nodded and sat quietly for a few moments. “Why, miss?”

“That’s a good question. I don’t really know myself. I guess I’m mad at myself. I never take risks, or say what needs to be said, or let myself do anything that might end up hurting me. And by doing this, I never truly live.”

“I see,” he said. Then he smiled mischievously, a twinkle jumping into his eyes. “This is about a boy, isn’t it, miss?” I couldn’t help but laugh, bringing a rosy glow to my cheeks that never seemed to come about much anymore.

“Maybe,” I responded, looking off into the distance and thinking of everything that could have been if I had just been brave enough to take a chance.

“Ha! It is!” he laughed. “So! What’s the problem with this boy, miss?” he asked, his eyes full of goodnatured laughter.

“Well, that’s a good story actually,” I told him. “When I was just about your age, I fell in love, and I’m in love with him to this day.”

“But love is fantastic!” the little boy exclaimed. “I know how it feels. I’m in love myself. It’s like that feeling you get when you’re at the very top of the swing and about to come flying down. Full of excitement with your heart racing and you feel like your stomach might just explode from all the butterflies and you’re not ready to fall yet but you fall anyway and you can’t help yourself and you just feel something unexplainable. It’s magical, miss! Everyone tells me magic isn’t real, but those people can’t have ever been in love, right?”

I nod, wishing for all the world that how he felt could be the way I felt. A long time before that day, I had felt love as he had explained it, but after many years the magic had given way to pain. “Love sure is unexplainable, that I agree with. But for me, the magic has gone away. The one I love doesn’t know how I feel. I never had the courage to tell him, and graduation is in a few months. I’ll never see him again.” I bit my lip as I thought of the countless moments I could have told him, but was too scared to. I hated myself for the pain I put myself through, the pain of never taking a risk for love.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell him? You must have felt the magic! That’s what love is. So why didn’t you just tell him you loved him when the magic was there? It’s easy to tell someone you love them.”

I sighed. “I wish it was easy. Then I would have done it years ago when was the magic had just begun. But now, now it’s too late. I lost my chance. And I could never tell him even if it wasn’t too late. I don’t have the courage to.” As I thought of the boy I loved, my heart first felt warm and beat quickly as I imagined his shy sweet smile, his messy dark brown hair, his twinkling bright blue eyes, his soft intelligent thoughts, and his laugh that put me at ease. But then it subsided to coldness as I thought of how he would never even know how I felt, and how it was all because of my terror at what he would say.

“But, miss!” he exclaimed, his young face utterly shocked. “It’s never too late for love! Never! That’s the beauty of it! And it is easy to tell someone! Here, I’ll show you. Watch!” The little boy leaped off his swing and sprinted over to a young girl in a light purple snowsuit who was building a snowman. I laughed as he clumsily slid into her and animatedly told her something I couldn’t quite hear. She nodded as he finished, causing his face to light up. He bounced happily, his red hat almost falling off his head in his excitement, before he sprinted back to where I sat on the swings.

“See, Miss? I told her! And look, she even said she liked me back! It’s easy! See?” I had thought it impossible for someone’s smile to be bigger than the young boy’s had been before and for his face to get even brighter, but somehow his smile stretched even further across his face and even more color and light was added to his cheeks.

“Maybe it is easy,” I told him.

“Maybe?” he said, indignantly. “Maybe! What else do you want from me? If I asked her to marry me, then would you see how easy it is? What will show you it’s as easy to tell someone you love them as it is to fall in love?”

“Proposal? You’re ready to marry that girl over there?” I asked him, laughs coming out of my mouth against my will. I found that no matter how hard I tried, the smile on my face simply would not go away.

“Well, miss, I love her, just like you love this boy of yours. If proposal is what it takes, then I am willing to go there. Well, not really. But maybe in a few years. But only if you do what I just did. Please, Miss? Please tell him?” He looked up at me with an expression that was the purest, the most pleading, and the most full of hope I had ever seen.

“I don’t know if I can,” I said. “It’s too late.”

“Miss?” he said.

“Yes?”

“You know what I think? I think that anyone who is too scared to tell someone they love them can’t truly love them. Because, you see, what is the use of love if the one you love never feels it? That’s what I think, Miss. I think that if you love someone, you should be willing to do anything to make the magic. Love’s a crazy thing, miss. But it’s wonderful. And you know what I think? If a little boy like me is brave enough to fall in love, then I think you’re brave enough, too. I know it, miss. And you know something else? You already have the bravery to tell him, miss. It’s just you have given up on love. Love can’t fade. It’s timeless. You never stopped loving him, you just stopped believing in what your love could do. A world without love is not one I want to live in, and you shouldn’t want to either. Love is a magical thing, miss, because all you have to do to feel its power is to believe. And you don’t feel its magic anymore because you have stopped believing.”

He smiled a sad smile, his voice shaking and his eyes fighting to keep the wetness inside. He looked at me with a level of sadness that broke me more than I had ever been. When I didn’t respond, didn’t tell him I agreed, that I believed, he turned and took a few slow steps away. By now I was weeping, my heart broken beyond repair, but I couldn’t give the little boy false hope. He was right. I had all but given up on love. And he knew that, but he was so full of hope, of love, that he turned back towards me and gave me and my cold heart one last chance. And for him, for his heart so full of love that he gave me one more chance to see love as the magic that he knew it to be, I am eternally thankful.

“Miss?” he said, choking back tears, “I just want you to know that you are brave enough to tell him. I know you are. It might be hard for you to do, and everything in you might be screaming not to, but please tell him. If you love someone, you should tell them. Because it’s too magical and too wonderful to miss. In the end, love is something beautiful no matter what. No matter what happens, I promise you’ll be glad you told him. Just take the risk and tell him. Don’t give up on love. Don’t give up on yourself. Don’t stop believing in the magic of love. Tell him, give it one more chance. Promise me, miss. Pinky swear.” He took off his glove and held out his shaking little finger, trembling as the icy snow landed on its tip.

I sat there on the swing, my tears dripping down as I thought of everything I had missed during the many years in which I had given up. I thought of the pain I went through thinking of the countless what-ifs, of the constant aching in my heart, of the glances I stole when no one was looking, of the continuous wondering, and of the eternal sorrow residing within me because I wasn’t brave enough to risk telling him. And then I looked at what was right in front of me, at the little boy who had shown me the truth. This little boy was infinitely braver and infinitely wiser than I was and ever would be. He had the heart to love with, and it loved so, so much; he had the courage to tell someone he loved them, to jump from a cliff and know someone would be there to catch him; and most importantly, he had the pure belief in love. He saw the beauty of falling in love with someone, the magic, the wonder, and he believed in it with all he had. And in that moment, I vowed that never again would I stop believing in love. I swore on everything I had, on everything and everyone I loved, that I would always believe in the power of love like this little boy did.

And so, I took a deep breath and looked at the young boy. He stood there quietly, staring earnestly into my eyes, and waiting while I thought about everything. His eyes had a fire in them, a fire that dared me to believe in love just as much as he did. And I let my own eyes catch fire, let it spread throughout me. In that moment, after years of pain, all I felt was love and happiness. I realized that all you have to do is believe in love. Believe in it with all your might, in its magic, its beauty.

And I believed, finally believed, as I locked my pinky with his.