People have asked me before, but this question is one I asked myself on more than one occasion as well.

What do I seek for in love ?

I have been educated in an all-girl's school since I was in primary school. I spent a total of 11 years in a Convent school. I never knew boys on a level where it would make it easy for me to be around them. I first learnt about a boy up close and personal, when I was 15.

When I was 15, I thought falling in love was having a name to brag about to others, declaring that you're attached. I thought falling in love is receiving dedications on Valentine's or any other special occasions, as was the trend in high school.

When I was 16, I thought falling in love was to like someone immensely, and to want to see him everyday. I thought it meant that, you'd receive gifts and tokens, you'd expect that from that special person. I thought falling in love was that, you simply cant get enough of that person, that you'd want to be with him every minute of the day. Texting the entire day and then late night calls and it goes around in a cycle.

And then when I was 16, I fell in love.

When I turned 17, I learned that love, is painful. I learned that what was there in the beginning, will not necessarily stay there as you carry on. I learned that what you give and offer to the other person, you might not receive it back. And I learned that every single time he hurts you, it still feels like the first time he stabbed you. Still as painful, impact still as great. It doesn't really recede as you expect it to.

When I greeted 18, I learned... so much more than I would have expected to at my age. I experienced things I shouldn't even have had to go through at my age. For every pocket of experience I received, I gained yet another slash of pain on my already battered heart. But they say that that is the best way one learns something. They are right. When I turned 18, I learned of sacrifice and selflessness, something I would never thought I would have been capable of until situations arose. I learned that promises are meant to be broken. I learnt to lose faith and trust in so many people and so many things in life. If I thought I was jaded at 17, I was completely and hopelessly wrong. At 18, I lost amost everything good I had left. I have lost any scrap of faith I had left in this gibberish they label love.

Now, I am 19. And I still ask myself, what do I seek for in love ?

Come to think of it, what I want and need, is truly simple. Uncomplicated in every sense of the word.

I want and need someone to love, and who loves me back equally, if not more. I deserve someone who is willing to sacrifice and give up for me, what I will for him. I need and want genuine sincerity, and I want and need that sincerity to last. I need honesty and faithfulness. I need a reason to have faith and find joy in life again. I need security. I need... to be needed.

All I need and seek for in a person who is probably capable of making me smile for the rest of my days, in one paragraph.

And yet life fails to deliver, again and again.

"Everything happens for a reason. But clever words won't make anything better."

Right now, at this point where I am, I think I have finally.. finally after 3 years, found closure.
Something that I should have found long ago.
I don't lament on a lost first love anymore. I don't have a ball of anger inside me anymore.

In fact, I have nothing left inside me anymore.
There is no heart, nothing.
To not have the ache and pain, I would gladly forgo the happiness as well.

I am well, and truly numb now. I honest to goodness, don't feel anything.

Should this be how it is ?

If it is, then Life, good job.
I officially surrender to you. There is nothing left you can do to me.

Nothing.