Marissa V.
Photography by Hannah Facenda
If you’re reading this, you are love.
I love a lot. Some people greet others with a handshake — I greet people with a hug. I have a “Love Log” pinned in my Notes app, where I write down nice things people say and little acts of love I receive. It’s nearly impossible for me to walk from point A to point B without stopping to hug and chat with at least two people. All of my interactions end with, “I love you.” I say it to friends as they exit the elevator, before hanging up the phone, and to people I saw just ten minutes ago. I am pursuing a career as a social worker because I want my life’s purpose to be loving people well. I quite literally have a hug tattooed on my arm. I love a lot.
I have to admit, though, that often, this love serves as a mask that I pull over my face when I’m hurting and struggling. I can put on the facade of loving myself, when in reality, there are often times that I look in the mirror and hate what I see looking back at me. There are instances when I feel genuinely hurt by someone, but confrontation is more petrifying to me than resolution. I have many moments where I deeply believe that I will never receive or be deserving of love, that it will never find me in the same way that I try to give it or chase it.
But then again, when love feels so out of reach that I feel like I will never hold it again, I see grass growing in the cracks of the city sidewalk, sprouting up despite all odds. I sit in the lounge of Ruby with my Arrupe group, and I feel God’s golden radiance living within us and bringing us together. I wake up to a voicemail from my Mimi, singing the “Good Morning” song alongside my little sisters and cousins as they wait at the bus stop. I go on a walk around the Res at 1 AM with my dear friend Will. I come home to my common room full of my closest friends on a game night, and we laugh until we cry. I sit outside Bapst, leading Pause and Pray with my dear Retreats Council friends. I talk about God with my friends until the sun rises, who listen and offer their own opinions. I sit out on a dock, looking at the stars, feeling so small. I chat with an incarcerated woman at our Prison Arts Outreach workshops. I play pickup basketball with my friends at the Plex until it closes. I wash my hands in the bathroom, and a stranger tells me my hair is pretty. My beautiful roommate sings with me, harmonizing as I play ukulele. I play We’re Not Really Strangers with my friends for the millionth time, but they still answer every question earnestly. I see members of my APPA families around campus and get greeted by special smiles of shared experience. I squish on the couch at a Women’s Center staff meeting, hearing about highs, lows, and kudos from the most incredible women I know. My close friends come to the Vandy 6th Floor Lounge, as I’m cramming and stressed, to sing and have a dance party. I see something orange, and it reminds me of my best friend Teresina. I cry in the bathroom with my roommates, sometimes holding and sometimes being held. I get surprise visits at work by my dearest friends. We sing “Build My Life” in the religious spaces I’m in, and I get to sing the line, “Lead me in Your love to those around me,” alongside the people that God’s love has led me to.
The Arrupe prayer concludes with “Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”
C.S. Lewis says, “Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest on reciprocity.”
The Bible says, “Do everything in love.”
Yet my Arrupe adult mentor, Doc Miller, said one of the most profound statements on love that will stick with me forever. One evening in El Salvador, as we sat in a circle for reflection, he told us, “Love what is.”
Friend, I can say I love you and mean it simply because you are. I can say I love you and mean it because no matter who you are or what you have done, you deserve it. I can say I love you and mean it because there is love anywhere if you look—just as much in the mirror as in a crowd.
If you’re reading this, not only are you loved, but you are love. Even when you don’t see it. Even if you don’t feel it. Even when you don’t think you’re worthy of it.
You don’t have to love a lot to see that it is all around you, that it is you.
Marissa V., Boston College
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