Love With All You Have by Keagan

Love With All You Have by Keagan - June 2022 Scholarship Essay

Books have brought a lot of magic and comfort into my life, but one specific book, one character has had an enormous affect, bigger than all the rest, on my life. Hazel-Grace Lancaster from "The Fault in our Stars" by John Green. The first time I read this book, I was around 14 years old. I hadn’t ever had a boyfriend, been in love, or anything. Through school, I knew a lot of people, people I considered friends, but they were people I barely knew, who barely cared for me. But I had read a lot of books about love and friends, and I spent a lot of time thinking and dreaming about what my life could be like, hoping that it would be like the books I read. Though my favorite genres have been fantasy, historical fiction, and dystopian, there was always something inside of me that was unexplainably drawn to contemporary fiction and romance. And that’s how I found “The Fault in our Stars”. A contemporary but dramatic romance novel about teenagers, high school, and love. But little did I know, fiction truly means what its’ definition says; “literature in the form of prose, especially short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people.” It is imaginary, made up, pretend. And though some people’s high school experience was perfect or good or filled with a love that lasted years, mine consisted of falling in love with boys who all left and disappointed me in different ways. But I always had hope in my dreams inspired by all the stories I read. I believed that someday, maybe I would have as epic and beautiful of a love story as the characters had in the books I read. But something I hold onto more than that hope is something that Hazel taught me; how to love without boundaries, with all that you have. In the book, it took Hazel a long time to accept the fact that Gus was in love with her, and that it was okay for her to love him back. Because of her disease, she was scared to put all her problems onto someone else, to burden them with all the issues and sadness and hurt that could come from sharing her life with someone else. She struggled with the vulnerability that it takes to be in a relationship, the openness you need to have when being yourself, and hoping that the person you love will love you just the way you are. And I struggled with that for a long time. I was accepting the love I thought I deserved (quote from “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”), thinking that I should settle for the people who at least loved me a little bit, because I doubted that anyone would love me any more. But when Hazel finally accepted the love of Gus, she finally allowed herself to love 110%, to give as much effort as she could and hope that Gus would give the same…that’s what sparked and continues to inspire me every single day. That showed that my hope in a future love story and making that love story last is just as up to me as it is to the guy I hope to find someday. And that is why I will always give my greatest effort to every love in my life, friends, family, strangers, and eventually, the love of my life.