Language has evolved over the years from Shakespeare’s rich sonnets to emoticons of smiley faces and hearts. And, though I understand it’s been a natural progression and that it took centuries to go from speaking in full-bodied poetic dialect to the causal execution of the same emotion still felt in life and love today, I sometimes wonder why we are so empty in our expression. Lengthy letters filled with longing have now been replaced with quick abbreviated texts and Facebook declarations of relationship statuses, while the thought of one true love has been replaced with a string of Mr. Right Now’s.
I am the ultimate in hopeless romantics. I lose myself in story, film and music… and even when the last chapter is read, the credits roll, or a song fades into another, I hold on and finish their story in my head. So many of my friends (aged anywhere from mid-20’s to early 30’s) have fallen in love with the New Moon trilogy – not for it’s dynamic writing (as it’s written for the teenaged demographic) but for the love story that sprawls across the pages. Each book, they have devoured in need for that same beautiful content to reach into their own relationships… and, perhaps if we spoke more of a romantic language, it would.
I realize that as centuries fade into the next, we are less and less likely to be able to recreate the splendour that was once commonplace, that we will continue to evolve our language of love into something completely unrecognizable in comparison. I only hope that we find our way back to authenticity, that we find a way to ensure those we care most for know it, understand it and feel it. Whole-heartedly.