She was 15 when she knew, with all her heart, that she was in love. It felt right because when she was 12-years-old, the wind and the water told her that just because she is young, it doesn’t mean she is going to feel any less, it just meant that she is not always going to understand it.

6 months later, it was over. Love found someone else and she was heart-broken. It hurt like crazy but it faded away. 57 months later, she met another human being and suddenly, she found herself becoming a part of another love story. Same to same but so different.

Every love affair that we have ever been a part of is different.

Love smelt like mint this time. When love kissed her, she got teleported to another world for that brief moment. A world which was as alien as it was intriguing. Love wore the same Tee, of different colours, everyday. Love loved pani-puri and ice-skating. Love’s taste in music was nothing like she had ever heard of before. She discovered a new aspect of love with every passing day and she fell in love with the process of discovering another human being so deeply.

When she met love, she thought they will always be together. Love was her soul-mate. Her sole-mate.

4 and a quarter years later, love wasn’t the love she met. Probably, she wasn’t the same person either. They grew apart. They both sought change more than each other. Perhaps, one of them fell out of love or simply, developed stronger feelings for someone or something more than love. There is also a possibility that she found herself getting too comfortable with this love-zone that all she wanted was to quickly fly to another to look for another adventure.

The reasons may be varied but what we need to focus over here is that she was with love this one moment and not anymore, the other. She asked herself, “Aren’t new experiences the reason why we are alive?” This marked the beginning of another chapter in her life and the end of one.

We are curious beings. Our curiosity, sometimes, brings out the best in us and sometimes, the worst.

This happens to a lot of us. Whether we’re 17, 29 or 68, change is the only constant in our lives. And in the matter of love, for some of us, we seek change and a new experience with a really high intensity that it becomes painful to stay. There are excruciating instances of utter guilt but what we need to understand is that humans are complex beings. Our demeanours are unique and varied. And so are our needs.

This time she was 25. She liked cheese and mushrooms more than ever but hated coffee as much as she loved it when she was 18. And now she was a woman who not only wore skirts every day, but also craved for a pain that consumes her and drives her insane. Something that makes her heart race at the speed of an F1 car. She was now romanticising a 60’s style love affair embellished with radios, vintage record players and conversations that took place before social media took over the world.

Seeking vivid love affairs is seen as a sin in our society. All it comes down to, most of the times, is slut-shaming.

We truly, inherently romanticise companionship limited to one singular human being and we have been doing this for many generations now. We find it difficult to go beyond believing that if a person doesn’t like the idea of living their lives as a solitary being, there is something so wrong with them. But why?

She, who is now 39, has been slut-shamed numerous times for having so many partners throughout her lifetime. She is looked down upon for not having a ‘family’ of her own. You know the usual, two kids and one husband.

We, as a society, teach our kids to be independent financially. We teach them to be strong individuals but why do we shame them for making their own choices? Just because someone likes a way of life that a lot of people wouldn’t conform to doesn’t make it wrong. Is she wrong for wanting her life to be that way? People are going to judge her, obviously, but just because it isn’t for them doesn’t mean it isn’t for her.

Her father was one strong man. He taught her to live her life fully and freely. She is still the wild heart she was when she was 19. She still doesn’t believe in the idea of marriage and having kids doesn’t excite her. Instead, she craves for vineyards and documenting everyday of her life. She Snapchats quite a bit putting at display her leaf collection one day or the new eye makeup tricks she recently learnt from her lover who is, you might be able to guess this, a make-up artist. She doesn’t conform. She will never conform.