to love is the biggest risk, yet you should still gamble every single time.
“You don’t know about real loss, because it only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much.” — Good Will Hunting
Unless you’ve been living in denial or under a rock, I hope we’re all on the same page that to love is also to risk losing. Consciously or not, you have experienced this concept in one way or another. Maybe you got broken up with, maybe you lost your best friend after a big fight, maybe someone you loved passed away.
I’m aware the concept of love being viewed as a risk sounds scary, but I hope this post is going to reassure you that nothing is worth more than whole-heartedly loving someone/something.
“You run the risk of weeping a little, if you let yourself get tamed.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
In this instance, the word “tamed” feels like as an expression of submission, the submission to your now vulnerable state as you open up your heart and your emotions fully to let anyone or anything in. It takes a lot to be fully submit to the full range and extent of your emotions, and for that I salute you.
To be vulnerable enough to let someone into your heart is a two-way street: while you open your heart up for love, you simultaneously also open the floodgates of sorrow when that thing or person eventually departs from your life.
If you had the hindsight of knowing that every single relationship you’ve ever been in— be it romantic or platonic — will end one day (e.g: falling out, death), would you still have expressed yourself and allowed yourself to divulge in the full extent of love? Would you dare to, if you know that it’s going to hurt a lot more than if you didn’t?
While I’m on this tangent, I think this is probably why there’s a saying that people never really forget their first love. From my experience, it was probably the most I’ve invested into a relationship because the promise of forever actually held some significance. My naivety has yet been tainted by the rules that govern reality. In my mind, we were the only exception to breakups and our love was going to triumph every single fight or disagreement we had, every single time.
The risk of losing him never crossed my mind because it just wasn’t comprehensible to me, being so blinded by the full force of love. That was the first and last time I’ve loved this boldly and stupidly. It’s also probably the first and last time that I’m ever going to experience such pure form of romantic love.
I cannot control this, but every relationship I’ve had after that is unconsciously governed by the physics of reality, and dampened by the sombre feeling that nothing ever really lasts forever. I can’t unlearn the fact that people are going to drift apart and that no matter how close you used to be, you’re going to one day you’re going to pass them by without saying a word when they used to be the person you talk to about everything.
I’ve (consciously or not) shielded myself ever since experiencing loss, but I’ve decided today that this is not how I’m going to keep living.
“Of course I’ll hurt you, of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we’ll hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence means accepting the risk of absence. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
I distinctly remember copy-pasting this quote on my work’s laptop on OneNote because I was having a hard time grasping the concept of unreciprocated love and feeling of abandonment. This helped me through such low times in my life, and I hope it gives you the same enlightenment too.
If you’re not willing to risk getting hurt, you’re simultaneously going to miss out on the full extent of how much you could love and be loved. Yes, you’re going to come out of any loss less affected by it if you never really fully submerged yourself in the whole experience, but then could you really say that you have loved?
The only way to avoid disappointment is to expect nothing. The only way to avoid hurt is to feel nothing. But the only way to live is to risk everything. — Brené Brown
If I really had to think back to the times I’ve both loved and lost, I can’t say that I’ve truly regret ever loving anyone or anything. Yeah, situationships suck and I got hurt at the end of it, but I’m happy I gave it my all and know that I have no regrets left there. There will no longer be any “what-ifs”, and now that I know how much I could love someone that’s wrong for me, I can’t imagine how much love I could give to someone who’s right for me.
Yeah, of course I was upset when my family cat passed away, but I’ll be damned if I restricted my love for him just because I know that he’s going to pass away someday. Yes, it’s going to hurt me less if I cared about my cat less, but I’d rather smother him with love while I can than push him aside for the sake of preparing my heart for the eventual absence of him.
A quote from Glennon Doyle reads: “Grief is love’s souvenir. It’s our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: “Look! Love was once mine. I love well.”
When the things or people you loved/was attached to come to an end, I hope you feel happy. I hope it makes you proud that you’re able to say that you’ve loved with your whole heart and soul, and that although you’ve lost, you have also been very, very brave.
I hope you wear it proudly on your chest and show it off to anyone who would listen and look, and I hope you know that I’ll always be a huge supporter of you and your courage to invest yourself fully. :)
