Love Is Like Paris

• Sarah Gerun, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2019

Love was one of those concepts that was hard to comprehend. An idea of having a feeling of endearment for one other, no matter the circumstances. In my seventeen years I hadn’t discovered what it truly meant to love someone, and so far, it had seemed like a wide stretch. Every ounce of passion, for just one aspect? Especially with the disloyalty and anguish it entails. In a case of fraudulence, all the betrayal and heartbreak, how could one still love that person? All of this reasoning, yet I still could not form a suitable explanation.

But here, as I sit with my legs crossed and journal in hand, on the balcony of my room, I decide that I might finally have an answer to my problem. I had been here, in Paris, for approximately two weeks now, and I had just about witnessed all it had to offer. It was riveting, for a summary. It had all that was spoken about in the books. But the longer I spent here, the more I had learnt that it was not all that met the eye.

It was beautiful, every corner you turned more eye-catching than the previous. Faultless architecture, sprinkled with blooming flowers, illuminated by the sun. Different cafés to pick the favour: pastries, bread, and the all timeless wine. And the people, well, all my time that I’d been here, I’d encountered the kindness and magnanimity. Cheerful banter fluttered through the crowded streets, and more often than not, people seemed to greet everyone they came across.

But it seemed as though, past all the glamour and charm, that Paris had a different side. Clouds full of anger and storm, looming over the alluring landscape. To visit all those nice places costed a fortune, and a fortune, I learned, I did not possess. The cafés with the expensive wine only benefited the drunk men who would drink, and then grope a poor woman of her privacy. And for every nice person I came across in the big city, I came across an equally crude person. A snarl among most faces as they pushed passed. Littered with pickpockets and burglars, Paris had a crime case every other week.

Love, I learned, is a lot like Paris. Because despite all the anguish and heartbreak, all the crime and anger, people seemed to be coming back. Back to solve problems and learn to look passed the lies, and focus on the good of loving someone. In Paris, no matter the bad weather, or every second grumpy person on the street, there were still so many wonderful things about it. All the imagery, the food and the experience. Love, although with bad turns, has so much to offer. It is worth every dent and crash to be with the one you love.

And as I write this in my journal, I realise that, that there, was the answer to what I had been puzzled about since the early years of my life.