Last week, I was particularly overtired while prepping for Big-Little Week. This caused me to stress over every little thing in my life. Naturally, after having whined about everything else I could possibly think of, I decided to get even less sleep one night and stay up talking to my friends about love. Are we surprised?
I started to complain to them, saying that I didn’t believe in “sparks” anymore. I know that love at first sight is total crap, but is a spark something that can occur instantaneously, after having just met someone? I know, I know—you’re 19 years old, Rachel, stop being so dramatic and jaded. If these are the things that keep you up at night, you don’t have such bad life. But growing up, I had always imagined that finding the right person would be easy –– I would go through a few wrong ones, but when it was right, there would be a “spark.” Back when I was a kid, I didn’t think much about what a “spark” actually was. How can it be qualified? How can you be sure when it happens? What if it happens and you miss it? So many questions that only a group of girls could stay up for hours talking about.
One friend said she doesn’t believe in “sparks.” Another said she thinks they happen after getting to know someone. But that sounds more like embers slowly igniting to me. Cheesy, I know, but as you get into a great relationship and start to really get to know each other, you feel all warm inside, not electric. I’m talking about that kind of electric feel that makes you take a step back and marvel at what you just experienced.
I watched a movie last summer called Timer. In it, a company had created timers that people could install in their wrists that would count down to the day they would meet their soulmates. Some timers said that they wouldn’t meet their soulmates for many years. Others went off when they were children. And still others never started counting down. In a way, we all have timers installed in our lives, whether you believe in fate, pre-destined events or whatever, eventually if you meet someone there will be a time and place for that encounter.
Having an actual timer sounds great at first. I would no longer have to wonder whether or not I would find a “spark,” because I would be guaranteed to do so. If only everything had some mathematical equation behind it, and perhaps it does. But what if half the fun of the “spark” is its unexpectedness? Maybe you meet someone one day, instantly hit it off, kiss before you should because you just can’t take it any longer (though you only met two days ago) and suddenly your entire outlook gets changed. That’s it. That’s the enigmatic “spark” you’ve been wondering about for so long.
Some of you will say it’s just extreme infatuation; others will argue that it’s something real. Either way, I’ve come to conclude that maybe “sparks” don’t just exist in Sparks novels.
Original Author: Rachel Ellicott