Love. The one thing every human searches for their entire lives. Many would say happiness or satisfaction, but both of those are ways of saying they want love as love brings lasting happiness and satisfaction.
Love. The one utterly undefinable aspect of life.
It is simulatneously the scariest and most inviting prospect ever open to us while we walk the Earth. Infinite possibilities encompassing 'fairy-tale endings' and bitter divorces.
Pain. Heartbreak. Despair. Uncertainty. Acceptance. Triumph. Contentment. Joy. All equally describe this thing called love.
The problem with attempting to describe love from an objective point of view is that it is a completely subjective ideal. One cannot discuss love without discussing onesself.
I once had a complete love. I wanted for nothing. Every single expectation had been met and exceeded, and I took my greatest pleasure from her happiness. She and I could spend hours in silence looking at a darkened ceiling; growing closer by listening to the sounds of the other's breathing. My entire manner changed when she was near - quite involuntarily - my maturity and discernment would increase simply by considering her.
I had everything I had ever sought in life.
I also lost everything I ever sought in life.
"The only step left is a huge one, and I don't think I can handle it right now. I still mean everything I said when I gave you the ring, but I just can't have this distraction right now. I'm losing touch with God and focusing too much on myself. I need to work on my relationship with Him and the work at school He wants me to accomplish, and you can't help me there."
After that she got in a car and drove off. I wasn't able to really talk to her for many months afterwards. She left me, still loved me, yet was too afraid to return. To this day it is as if she stabbed my heart but never removed the dagger. The wound does not heal, does not scar, and simply grows worse. Some things, like games or message boards are like morpheine that numb the pain, but invariably I will awaken at some point and the pain will be worse that it ever was before.
Knowing the outcome I would travel back in time and do it all again.
You see, love isn't just about the bliss. Love is as much about the agony I wake with every morning as it is about the euphoria I experience to this day at seeing her IM name pop online. It is said that pain and progress go hand in hand, the same is true of love and loss. The point is not whether love is worth it, but whether you can handle the intensity that perfection brings. Perfect love is pain, and pain is pleasurable. I'm no masochist, but I know that the pain I feel is for her and because of her, therefore I can rejoice.
For the record we never slept together, and I waited 3 months to even kiss her. Do I harbor hopes of reunion? Of course. Do I believe that there would be no possibility of it ending the same way? Of course not. I know her character, I fell in love with it after all. She in deathly afraid of her own inferiority. She is afraid because she reveres me more than I deserve. She believes I couldn't possibly endure her forever, though I know her to be wrong.
That is my story of love, take from it what you will.
