When I was young, I was a hopeless romantic. I used to swirl around my bedroom with one of my mother’s silk scarves tied around my hair and trailing behind me like a wedding veil, dreaming of my Prince Charming. He had no particularly defining features, this imaginary prince of mine. He wasn’t blue-eyed nor brown, black-haired or blond. He just was — whole and perfect in every way; a myth of a man completely molded by the whims of that day’s imaginary play.

In my first year of high school, I can recall walking down the long linoleum-lined hallways of the school, slipping quietly from group to group, fixing my starry-eyed gaze on the handsome and tall senior boys. I was positively captivated by those elite few who were not only seniors but also wore the blue and gold of our school’s rugby uniform. There was nothing I wanted more than to find my one true love and live happily ever after and I was convinced my true love was here, striding confidently down these same halls that I was.

And then one lazy summer weekend at the cottage, I heard four small words that would rock my world. The cottage was a small and cozy house perpetually under construction that perched high on a rocky island in the middle of a deep blue lake. My parents had invited friends of theirs to visit for the day. Somehow, the conversation turned to love, and I chimed in with my utter conviction that the perfect love was just waiting for me to find.