Love ain’t on my side, love ain’t special, love ain’t great
Lost in a fog, amusing spite to find my way
Where did you go? I still curse you to this day
–Josh Rouse/My Love Has Gone
Sometimes love can be hard.
Yes, it’s wonderful
Yes, it’s the most important thing in life once you’ve got your survival basics covered.
Yes, it’s even a many splendored fucking thing.
When all the puzzle pieces are put together properly, and the heart and soul unite, there is nothing like it. I think descriptions of Heaven are based on how you feel when you are in that phase of love where it’s perfect, including the radiant glow. There’s total trust and faith, total love and total belief in each other. Throw in sexual compatibility and you’ve got one powerful feeling.
So what’s the problem? Love is love. It’s patient and kind, right? Not so much. Not always.
At times, love is a badass motherfucker who knocks you down, steals your wallet and then kicks you in the head just because it can. Then, just to fuck with you some more, it runs off with your husband and keys your car. On a really bad day, it also knocks up your daughter.
Love is sometimes a real bitch.
When it’s all good? It is. It’s all good. Then…when it’s gone for one of you, what happens?
Even in a good breakup, one where neither of you is a bad person. One where no one means to hurt anyone When one person stops loving the other one, it’s never the same again. Especially for the one who gets left. The one who leaves has at least the benefit of choice. The one who is left is…left. Even if it’s for the best, it’s never easy to be the person who gets left.
Instead of having all of the pieces of your heart neatly assembled, and going through life in that radiant loving glow? You’re no longer part of that. It’s not that people are different from how they were yesterday. It’s not that life is really any harder than it was before you fell in love. It’s like being cast out of Paradise. Real life is colder and harder than Heaven, and colder and harder than being in love. So having the same sort of life you had before doesn’t feel the same because you know what perfect is now. And it’s gone. You’re back in the cold, empty, rainy Default World again, and it feels like being in Hell, but only because it isn’t Heaven any more.
It sucks.
And there’s really no way around it except to avoid having your heart broken. Which is impossible. I would guess that almost all adults have had their hearts broken at least once. You can avoid falling in love, I suppose, but there’s a pretty huge downside to that.
You don’t get to be in love.
Being in love like that is amazing. I think it only really happens once. After that, we don’t have the same faith that we do that first time. Is it worth it?
Walking in Heaven, even for a short time?
Wouldn’t you want to?