Introduction to Magnolia

I have always been in love with the concept of love. I suspect it’s a symptom of habitual loneliness and yearning for fulfillment that comes from being an idealistic only-child — the desire for your other half who can make walking the path of life much less of a solitary affair, even if it’s only for a little bit.

This probably also explains why I ended up majoring in English in college - I always voted for literature in the “Who’s the greater genius: Shakespeare or Einstein?” debate. It seemed to me that someone who made it his business to understand and convey the workings of the heart had a much more daunting task before him than any other unsolved mystery mankind has ever known.

Have I found love? Maybe. At some point or another I’ve experienced what it’s like to consider someone’s happiness indispensable to my own, to be totally consumed with passion for everything about someone (the good and the bad), to adore and be adored, to coexist in a state of blissful harmonic companionship, etc. But all of these feelings, and all of the individuals associated with them, have come and gone. Something about that ephemerality tells me I might have gotten a taste of some types of love, but the type that movies are made of, the stuff of epic proportions, the forever kind, has eluded me. The lonely and idealistic romantic in me always hopes (often fearfully) that this won’t be the case for too long, no matter how many disappointments, heartbreaks, and downright ridiculous encounters the search for love has led me to.