A collection of memoirs and short pieces

20th February 2024 - Love (Memoir)

It's a strange feeling, being in love. It envelops your being and makes sure every waking thought and interaction is colored by the infatuation you can't quite place. Love makes you do things you never thought you would, and makes you go places that forever remain an incredibly dear part of your life. Love makes you feel so strongly, that sometimes it doesn't feel worth it. Love makes you vulnerable, and it hurts you when you least expect it. But nothing comforts you quite like it either. Love is cruel, but that's what makes it beautiful. It's a cruelty we continue to inflict upon ourselves and others, because there's meaning in the suffering, and inexplicable euphoria in the moments of quiet reflection. It forces you to become a better person, and to see yourself for who you truly are.

That's what this activity is for me. It's love. Not just for the rounds, but for the countless hours spent prepping before them, or the many nights spent together in quiet sadness after a bad tournament loss. It's the moments in between the pressure of the tournament where we go to wish each other good luck and mean it with the most earnest sincerity, and the moments when we come in to commiserate each other for a loss and feel genuinely sad, even when we've made it past the round. It's the people I've met throughout my time here, and how they've always inspired me to be so much more than I am now, while also being there to constantly help me get back up and keep pushing through along the way. It's that feeling of joy as the thing we've worked towards for so long has finally happened, followed almost immediately by a twinge of sadness that the people we wanted to do this with first aren't here to witness it. It's the constant reassurance that, despite everything, despite whatever else may happen in life, no matter how your day is going or how much you hate yourself, you have a home that can somehow consistently push all that aside and just make you feel safe. It's the knowledge that no matter how much time you spend doing this, there's always another challenge to climb, another battle to fight, and another speaker to challenge. That's why I love debating, and why I'll always be the first to advocate for people to continue to speak and judge and involve themself in anyway possible, because who wouldn't want others to experience the very thing that gives their life its meaning in almost every sense of the word?