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Sweet Torture

I love reading the "Modern Love" section in The New York Times. There's one long essay every wee and  a column for Tiny Love Stories. I don't get to them as often as I'd like, but when I find the time, I bing on them. Although I find the stories inspiring, I usually spend the majority of my reading time either fighting tears or drying my eyes.

One might ask why I continue to read them when I react that way. After all, subjecting myself to such unnecessary pain seems pointless. 

For one, the writing is superb. Even though the content makes me cry, I can't deny the wordsmithery used in telling the stories. Another reason I keep reading is that I need to see that love IS possible. Although it has yet to find me, I see that it can exist for others.

You know what's even worse that reading love stories? Watching them play out in the real lives of the high school students I teach. I've given out more relationship advice than I ever thought I would to teenagers since I started touching the future in the classroom. (And NO I do NOT mean in a literal, hands-on way.)

I honestly love watching the kids pair up -- especially the ones that make sense. It's cool to be at the beginning of someone's love journey. I try my best to give the kind of advice that I needed at that age -- like how forgiveness in important and how it's okay to walk away from someone that doesn't have your best interests at heart. How I wish I'd had someone in my life to tell me those things. Maybe I'd be the star of my own  Modern Love story.

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