When you think of love, you might think of your mom or your best friends; you might think of the first boy you fell in love with freshman year; you might think of your favorite band, the feeling you get when you play your favorite sport, or you might see that little place, all your own, where you go when you’ve had a really long day. It’s more than that, though. It’s something that touches us every day if we’re open to it. It’s pretty clear to spot love when the feeling comes to us, but I think a lot of people don’t take the time to look for love and see it in all the unlikely places it lives every single day.

I honestly fall in love with people on a daily basis. I fall in love with people I’ve never met and people I’ll never see again. I fall in love with the way someone’s eyes light up when they tell a story and the look in a person’s eyes when they talk of something they’re passionate about; I love when you can see the love in someone else. I see love when someone says “call me when you get home”, because they want to know you’re safe. I love every single one of my teachers – even the ones I don’t like – because they inspire me and hold me together more than they will ever know. I fall in love regularly with the thousands of people surrounding me, all smushed in close at a concert, sharing a connection no one can explain with strangers who are all together, vibing to the same good music…embraced in a sea of people they will never see again, but they love them all the same; it doesn’t matter if you’re poor or rich, gay or straight or clinically depressed – none of it matters and nobody asks, and I fall in love being in that and watching it. I find love in the Starbucks I go to once in a while, because Dennis still remembers my name even though I will go two years at a time without coming in, and because he speaks to me in spanish to this day because I used to study for my vocab tests in the mornings in seventh grade. My very favorite thing to watch is when a couple of friends ask a stranger to take their picture; the random photographer has never met these people before, but do you know what happens, without fail, every single time as this picture is taken? The photographer inadvertently lights up with a smile, watching the friends behind the camera smile. I’ve never seen this common everyday occurrence transpire without these subconscious smiles between strangers. Without even realizing it, we become happier when we see others happy. That’s love in a very primitive form, and it’s pretty beautiful to watch.

I challenge you to see love where you wouldn’t normally. It isn’t some sacred thing that happens only a few times in a lifetime with a few special people, and it isn’t something we should wait to say “until we’re really sure.” We shouldn’t be afraid to announce it because we feel the other person might not feel the same. Life is so short – much too short to not find something to love in everything and everyone. Look for it when the barista at Starbucks remembers your name, and look for it when that one blessed soul lets you out of your parking spot at school after you’ve been stuck there for half an hour.  I promise you life gets a lot sweeter when you realize this stuff is everywhere. It’s in the subtle acts of kindness, the simple gestures and the people we don’t even really know.

Love kisses us every day, sometimes gently on the forehead, and sometimes passionately as hell. The problem is people don’t take the time to see love when it doesn’t speak its presence blatantly – when there isn’t someone looking you in the eyes saying he or she loves you. Love is right now – it’s in the thousands of little moments to cherish that hide in the spaces between seconds, between memories and catastrophes, and it’s in the people that pass through our lives in all of those moments.