Love

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up a whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' or 'how very perceptive' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love. " Rose Walker - The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

My Grandmother, God Bless her, always said, "Love goes where its sent, even if its up a pig's ass". It always made me laugh, because I always wondered if that's how she felt about her 50+ years of marriage.

But, Love, that great motivator of Life, does do exactly that. It doesn't choose based on predictable measures, or quantifiable qualities. Thus, people find themselves in love, or loving in the oddest of times, and in the most unlikely of places. Thus, it goes where it will.

Love causes Pain. Not pain. Pain, with a capital P. The most intense pain. No one that has ever felt the pain of a love lost, or unrequited love would tell you any different. It really is a "soul pain". When you give someone pieces of yourself, its as if you lose those parts of you when that love is gone, or unreturned.

And so the question becomes, is it worth it?

Of course it is. Everytime you give out a piece of yourself, you make room for something new, and exciting. It isn't an empty void, its just a place that is ready to be filled. So maybe you do lose those parts of yourself that you were .... you've just emptied out spaces for who you will become.

I have never loved, and not gotten something in return. Even unrequited love has given me something, even if it was an appreciation for what I did not have, or what I ended up not missing.

So, no, unlike the quote, I do not Hate Love. I don't always understand it. And over the years, I have shed many tears for its loss. But I have never regretted it. It has always left me feeling stronger in the long run. It has shaped me into the person I am. And will shape me into whatever I am to become.

But, that's another blog.