“I have fallen in love twice in my life.”
Vita, a former swimmer with an open-hearted soul, describes her experience with love and heartbreak.
“One was a plunge into the deep end—a slip on the edge of the water—and I fell headfirst without a lifejacket. It was the summer of my junior year and my heart reached out to a boy: the handsome, intelligent senior who cracked the same jokes I did. These kinds of stories are supposed to end with the strength to swim out from under the current of the river and embrace the love that engulfs you. Strung on by a series of one-night stands and faux proclamations of love, I gasped for air. The torrent of water filled my lungs instead and choked what spark I had left of me. I grasped onto passing rocks, the thought of him staying in bed the morning after or the text at 2am, but they left me treading water just under the surface—hope, but always out of reach.”
Eventually, the tumultuous relationship grew to a close.
“Two years later, the river spit me back out onto the muddy banks as our conversations faded to nothing, and I curled up in the warm sun and vowed to never venture near the water again.”
At this point, it seemed like everything Vita had hoped for and believed came crashing down around her. She had loved and lost, and she could have given up here. But she didn’t.
“The second time was different. The cool water had brushed over my toes ever so gently on the sand, and the ocean glistened on the wave crests. I did not go in. I met this boy my freshman year of college and friend-zoned him immediately. The river had not been kind to me, and I had no business thinking the ocean would be any better. What I failed to see at first was the pace. The rushing current of the river had swept me away far from what I called home, and my journey back had taken forever. But here, the ebb and flow of the waves soothed me, the careful tides patiently retreating.”
What began as a slow friendship soon blossomed into a fruitful, healthy relationship that filled Vita’s days with joy rather than pain.
“A friendship grew between me and this junior in college, who matched my energy step for step, whose smile lit up the farthest corners of my heart, whose eyes were the color of curling ferns in a quiet forest, and whose jokes lifted me from the grayest of days. Before I realized what had happened, I had waded in knees deep into the ocean, and as it swirled around my legs, I let myself follow the gentle pull deeper. I knew I was in love with him when we went to the Apple Store downtown to fix my phone. No one could make such a boring trip as much fun as he did, and I realized I wanted him there for every boring and exciting part of my life for the rest of my life. I let myself into the cool water and floated on my back, the ocean holding me up lightly to the sun’s rays, washing rivulets over my body. The ocean dared not take me out farther than where my toes touched the sand, and I kicked back, and let myself drift with the tide. It was love.”
In the end, Vita found true serendipity—in the wake of the gentle sea, she found a soulmate.
Nonetheless, Vita still reflects on the rollercoaster of her emotions. She explains that her worst vice is emotional instability.
“I become engulfed in my emotions all too quickly, and act on them first before think things through. This goes for any emotion—I fall in love too quickly but likewise, become irritated too quickly. I have apologized too many times to count for my behavior because I feel my emotions so strongly that they bubble over and I project.”
That said, this vice comes with the flipside bottomless love and affection. Vita believes her best virtue is how much she loves people. “I am the most depressed when I am alone,” she says.
Vita needs to be surrounded by friends and family to talk with and share in the love, and she is willing to drop what she is working on to spend time with the people she cares about. The clearest example that surfaces is the time she dragged herself to a flower show with her best friends despite her 102-degree fever. Vita missed them dearly and didn’t want to miss the opportunity to spend a day together.
“I have stayed up until 4am talking my friends out of suicide and self-harm to make sure they are safe and have turned to adults and trusted friends to help me and them out along the way. I love every single person I meet, and I do my best to show it no matter where I am,” she adds.
Someone Vita especially loves is her mother, who she considers to be her role model. “She has been there for me since the beginning—literally,” Vita says. “No matter how life brought me down, she would always find the positives in the situation and encourage me to try harder and push towards success.
Vita’s mother immigrated to the U.S. in 1990 with a mere $100 in her pocket and no grasp of the English language. Now, she is a high-ranking manager that oversees AI robotics at an insurance company. This incredible success story, a turnaround of such magnitude and meaning, serves as an inspiration to Vita.
“She inspires me to build a better future for myself every day,” Vita elaborates. “When I’m struggling with the college course load, I think of everything she has done to secures success for me, and I strive to make her proud.” The admirable story of the immigrant who arrives in a new country with nothing but hope in their back pocket is a dream that can inspire and motivate us all.
Vita’s life is now one filled with much happiness. “I have been overridden with joy so many times in my lie that it’s hard to count and name each memory.”
She thinks happiness can be broken down into a couple differing experiences. One form of happiness can involve a cozy sense of contentment, whereas another form includes an overwhelming feeling of exhilaration.
Vita recalls one of her happiest moments in life: “when I was around 7 years old, and I was at my grandma’s house for Easter. We had just made pastries covered in white icing and sprinkles, and while they were cooling, I went out to climb the tree in her yard. The birds trilled in the branches above me, and I sat on the branch and drank in the warm sun baking my back. I heard a car pull up, and my mom came out in a billowing green flower skirt before my grandma came out to say hi. I had scrambled from the tree and ran to hug her; she smelled of her perfume and cookies. My grandma packed the pastries for us to take home, and my mom took me home to paint eggs.”
This memory serves as Vita’s happy place that she can escape to—a simple and pure memory we can all find within our own selves to renew our hope when life brings us down.
About Vita
Artist, ambitious reader, friend and mother to all, open-hearted soul, passionate and strong-willed extrovert
Between the Lines 