Late Loves Are Better Loves

Late loves are better loves. They are denser and more complete than young ones.

There are different kinds of love depending on the time of life.

When you’re too young, only a child, you don’t even know yourself, let alone what love is.

But soon, innocent love comes around the corner and turns your cheeks pink when, by chance, you lightly touch the arm of the person you love. But that’s all it is, nor could it ever be more.

It’s naive, innocent, and cute.

Then there’s that platonic, fatalistic love of the age of fifteen.

It’s a love inscribed in an absolute tragedy of feelings — one day, the heart rejoices, and the next day, it falls apart into a thousand and one particles. It’s a love that can kill us if we’re not cautious.

But we also soon let it go by.

Then there’s the passion for bodies, which is thought to be love, which is merely the passion of feeling alive. One wonders why life couldn’t be just that. One wonders how we can even do anything else. One wonders if it will last, that feeling of the many firsts…

All these forms of love eventually dissolve and become an integral part, whether it’s the romantic love I’ve talked about here or other types of love (there are so many). Love transforms, just like life does, too. We evolve with it, too.

Today, I picked up a book on the stylistics of the Portuguese language and imagined a brief dialogue with a former teacher. I’m sure she’d be amazed.

“Do you like it now, Joana?” she would ask me in amazement.

And I would happily reply, “Yes, it’s a later love.”

She would consent, saying nothing more.

“It’s a love that came late, settled in, and took me with it. I’ve been taken hostage. I’m lost in his arms for now. But one day, I’ll come back and give myself to be found by another love.

But for now, I’m loving being lost here. As for tomorrow, we’ll see”