I have forever been a dreamer, and so, I admit, I idealise love in a lot of ways.

Sure, I've been hurt, although I prefer not to acknowledge the potentialities, it's almost a certainty that lies in us all. Some instances remain only as distant memories, perhaps only surfacing when songs a once-beloved was fond of grace the airwaves, stilling my heart to ache to the faint beat of nostalgia's echo. Fresher burns may linger, their flames extinguished, but dying embers cling to the scars, awaiting time to truly heal the deepest of wounds and blow remnant ashes away. Some stings are even created in the present, thorny tendrils piercing deeply through armour that seemed impenetrable, seeking to challenge the status quo.

My romanticised heart holds these fractures of acute distress, is bound by seams weakened through chronic devastation, and, it weeps with new ills... I am just as jaded as everyone else.

Nevertheless, I reach for the optimist in me and yearn to value each darkly pigmented stain of heartbreak for the intricate art it has imprinted upon me. What I learn or come to understand about myself has only ever encouraged me to shout out to my resident sentimentalist - an ever present reminder that I am a strong woman, full of unending passion and devotion to share. It means that I choose to still see love as mysterious and exciting, and, bursting with glamour and goodness.

Yes, I am, unashamedly, a starry-eyed and hopeful romantic.

Affairs of the heart are certainly complex in nature; wavering between remarkably simple and overwhelmingly complicated. In their essence, though, we have the capacity to write our own love stories, and I had always been convinced that it is only we that have the power to shape their meaning and significance.

Obviously, some things are meant to take you by surprise, because somehow, he immediately felt like fate. He was so much more than a grown woman's fanciful visions. It was sudden, the way he waltzed into my life, but the sheer magnetism of his presence, the beauty, and grace of his magnificent being - it was as though this man, he belonged to a world I’d only ever imagined. A world that, in the depths of attraction and attachment, we realised was only ours to claim.

Falling in love is akin to chemical insanity, influenced by a powerful cocktail of neurotransmitters. The deluge of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and adrenaline basically makes us go "ga-ga," somehow our vulnerabilities fade into a well of disinhibition, and in spite of any noticeable flaws, all we come to see is some bizarre notion of complete perfection, as we place our partners upon our tallest pedestals. Perfection... a capricious concept at best, and in this case it's prejudiced by the clever trickery of our neurochemistry, a top-notch façade motivated by the biological imperative to perpetuate our species.

This felt so different, though. It was though we were fused on some cellular level, tangled by invisible threads, our undeniable bond fuelled by parallels as if we were mirrors. Our connection was instantaneous and unmistakable; we could never have fought it. We were immediately inseparable, and to me, he was the kind of perfection that you come to believe only exists in fantasies. Crafted with carefully selected words and delicate illustrations, that dance on the pages of your favourite childhood fairytale.

And yet, with every passing moment, I knew he was so much more than idyllic reverie.

He walked into my life, and; I soon knew nothing more than the beauty of our tender collision, as we wrote our own magical narrative.