I was a freshman in high school when I fell in love with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The play was my first taste of romance, passion and heart break. I dreamed of having some of those same feelings, like being enraptured by love against all odds. Though the the love story was tragic, even in my youth I had some relief knowing that in their death, they would be together forever. As I grew older, experienced more of life, cynicism couldn’t keep its evil claws from crawling through my mind. How could they possibly know what love is, I thought to myself. They’re so young, they barely knew each other a week. That’s ridiculous. Isn’t love more than the physical attraction? Yet still, I have always been drawn to their story. Who doesn’t hope to find love in this sometimes harsh and cold world? You read Romeo and Juliet and can’t help but hope that they can be together in the end, even when the entire world has the odds set against them. They found each other, though they were from different worlds. In each other, they met their match. They found a love where they couldn’t see being without the other. It is so difficult when you mature and realize that it becomes more and more difficult to meet “the one.” Unabashed love seems impossible, when songs of experience taints your heart with fear and caution. When you read Romeo and Juliet as an adult, their love seems juvenile and premature. In spite of this, one still hopes for this requited love of Romeo and Juliet to flower because they hope for one’s own requited love.

ROMEO O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.

Being in night, all this is but a dream,

Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

“Too flattering-sweet to be substantial” is what gets me most. Love is more than attraction. Attraction provokes and pulls you to your complimenting opposite.  I’ve felt those “flattering-sweet” feelings.