There is a [certain] cruelty to love…
“…if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.”
Romantic love is the strangest of human emotions; it can be seemingly rock hard, unassailable by any force or prone to disappearing as vapor. In either state, it holds hints of the other.
Love can happen in an instant or take months and years to grow surviving all sorts of tests, natural or contrived. It is the latter ones; often conjured up by the less sure partner, that can ruin life’s sweetest potential for coupling.
The gulf from initial spark (lust) to a deeper, abiding love can be too vast with the early foundation of something grand collapsing into the abyss. Uncontrollable factors such as timing, luck and the passage of physical time figure in the mix as much as the genuineness and receptivity between two people.
New lovers’ hands grasp each other delighted and mesmerized by the slowly shifting tactile reward. Tighten one’s grip too hard, as some figuratively do in young relationships, and love’s bountiful energy disperses helter skelter as quicksilver from a broken thermometer. What was invigorating is no longer found in any perceptible amount.
Love can fade without either partner’s realization until too late. Committed life paths, once in synch and unwavering, diverge never to meet again. Separation can happen in mind & spirit eons before physical bodies part.
My actions, your actions, external influences or a swirling combination can make love permanent or gang up to weaken it irreparably. Similarly, unmet expectations, both real and unrealistic, cause love to die or go on hiatus long enough for a partner to explore another’s embrace.
At its most potent, love crowds out all other emotions and senses. One breathes love, eats love, sleeps love, is love. There is nothing more intoxicating. When withering, withdrawn temporarily or lost for good, feelings are as intense; only it is pain, misery, loneliness, inadequacy. One feels punished by the gods.
Often love must be restrained for many reasons: one can not love another (societal factors), one can not surmount assumptions of rejection or one thinks the beloved won’t be able to handle the torrent of passion unleashed. For the object of one’s affection, doubt, misbelief and fears of disingenuity arise even in the presence of the purest expression of feelings imaginable.
One can put all their efforts in to nurturing love but without an equally committed and open partner, the soil of life lies dry and barren. Love needs the perfect balance to endure. There is no golden rule or formula and the right amount is different for each emerging and ongoing partnership. Once it takes hold, there are no guarantees on depth, strength or duration. This is the cruelty of love.
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Image by Franco Folini
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