What Don Quixote taught me about love

By Valerie Sanabria | Published by April 15, 2021

After a semester studying Cervantes’ writing and going through a terrible break up I learned that “True love has no conditions” as Dr. Gregory Shepherd, World-Languages Coordinator at Kean, constantly repeated during one of the many literature classes I took with him during the last two years.

I’m not sure how many books about love I’ve read, but I am sure that I found my own definition of what love really is after reading and analyzing Don Quixote.

Miguel De Cervantes not only narrates the adventures of a man who is passionate about chivalric novels, there is so much more if we read between the lines.

After I read Don Quixote for the second time and after hours of analyzing each adventure in class I realized that each one of us is going through a different path. The way we love and how hard we love depends on the experiences we have lived.

I like to think that we are knight errant ourselves learning from each adventure. Sometimes we mistakenly fall in love with who we think are Disney princes when those are actually frogs, just as when Don Quixote saw windmills and thought those were giants.

I’ve heard stories of people that never fell in love with a frog and found real love easily. Some other people believe that there are no princes left. All of this sounds complicated, but this is part of the adventure.

For Angie Torres, a third year English Writing student, love is an adventure because the person you love can make you feel what no one else can.

“Love is wanting the best for somebody. When I love someone, I want them to be well, successful, and happy. I also want to have that person close to me as much as possible,” Torres said.

In Don Quixote there is an adventure where he hears about Marcela, a beautiful and wealthy woman who decided not to marry and live a shepherdess’s life. She was free and happy by herself. She made her decision.

When I love, I give everything.

I often think about love. It’s one of my thousand obsessions. Losing those I love is another obsession. While trying not to lose anyone, I forgot to love myself and I ended up losing everyone, including me.

I lost myself trying to save everyone around me. I constantly breakup with myself to get everyone else back together. As Elvira Sastre, one of my favorite Spanish poets said, I was not feeling lost, but I was not sure where the ocean inside me ended and I was drowning. I was literally drowning.

People fall in love during different stages in their lives. I don’t think there is a pattern. I have a pattern of seeing the good in everyone and trying to save those around me even if I’m drowning.

I had this crazy idea that you get your heartbroken by a romantic partner, but I understood that it does not work like that. Romantic people just like me get their heart broken constantly and anyone can be responsible, even our own thoughts.

When I heard Dr. Shepherd said, “Love with conditions is not love” my life changed a little. That phrase helped me understand everything and also Marcela’s story.

We often forget to love the person we are. We often forget to celebrate how powerful, beautiful and smart we are. We compliment others, but we can easily forget to compliment ourselves.

We don’t need a romantic partner if we don’t want to, but if we do, we should also feel free. Love is about freedom and about being happy, love should be about choosing by ourselves, love should be about choosing us and then someone else to be free with.

Love is an adventure. It is an adventure with people around you, but also an adventure with yourself. You shouldn’t put restrictions on love, who you love, or how you love them.

I wanted to have everyone around me all the time and I wanted them to be happy, but I was making everyone crazy in the process. I was stealing their freedom.

I stopped loving me because I was focusing on everyone around me. I was not like Marcela. I was Don Quixote living in my own reality and yes, love is wanting the best for someone else, but also the best for you.

 

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