When I was 17 I went to see a fortune teller. My two friends and I (feisty, feminist, forthright) went in one by one. She gave us all, it turned out, the same three options: did we want to know about career, health or love? Love, we’d all said.

My two friends were assured that a great love loomed over their futures. They were both about to meet someone. Someone special. Someone who would bring change and excitement and possibility to their lives. They were, as you’d expect, thrilled. They were, as you’d also expect, eager to know about me.

‘You?’ The fortune teller had said. ‘Well, you’re in love with love.’

She was right. I was stunned. I was a bit offended too. But she was still right. I was in love with love.

Surely that made me some kind of sappy lost cause though, no? Like someone from an old romantic novel. Some Barbara Cartland, chiffon-clad dreamer destined for a life of moping about on chaises and having my heart broken.

She was right. But with age came perspective. Being in love with love, it turns out, is being in love with life. There were people in my future too (they must’ve been stood behind something when she’d looked). Some were special, others very much less, and one (eventually) just perfectly so (12 years later, but well worth the wait).

Being in love with love has brought me joy. It’s also brought me heartbreak – but that’s love.

Being in love with love means being open to feeling it all. The brightness and the fizzing. The spikes and the hollows. The comfort and the tired warmth.

Being in love with love means embracing life even when doing so is harder than not.