ROMANCE IS EVERYWHERE — in films, shows, books, music, and even the stories we tell ourselves before bed. Mainstream media fills our minds with the idea of love lived through rose-colored glasses: the grand gestures, the effortless chemistry, the perfect timing, the "meant to be" moments. And don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful. I’ve always adored those stories. I’m a hopeless romantic through and through. I swoon over handwritten letters, long stares across a crowded room, and endings that wrap up with the kind of magic that makes your chest ache, the good kind of ache.

But as I've grown, experienced love, lost love, questioned love, and stumbled my way through understanding it, I’ve had to face a hard truth: sometimes the love we imagine doesn’t line up with the love we live.

Real love isn’t always bathed in golden light. It’s not always tidy or poetic. It doesn’t always sound like a movie soundtrack or look like a Pinterest board. Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it challenges you more than it comforts you. And that’s okay. In fact, that’s part of what makes it real. Part of what makes it matter.

Having high expectations isn’t a flaw. Wanting magic, passion, connection none of that is too much. But I’ve learned that it’s important to balance the dream with grace and understanding for yourself and for your person. Love takes work. It takes patience, vulnerability, communication, and compromise. It’s not always perfect, but that doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful.

I’ve been told before that my head is too far in the clouds. That I see love through a lens that doesn’t exist in the real world. And maybe, sometimes, they were right. But I’ve also learned that you can be dreamy and grounded. You can want the fireworks and still appreciate the quiet, consistent flame that never goes out.

That’s why I wrote and designed this booklet.

Not just for the hopeless romantics like me who still want to believe in magic but also for the skeptics, the realists, the ones who’ve been through the wringer and aren’t sure what love is supposed to look like anymore. This is for all of us. A reminder that love can be playful, youthful, messy, imperfect, real and still worth celebrating.

From one hopeless romantic to another, Xoxo