Sneaking In A Serious Moment

I have bad news.  I’m not sure if it ever stops hurting.  I think we just learn to live with the pain.  Sometimes that big bad bitch of a world snatches someone from you before you’re done with them.  And it’s a shredding, ripping, tearing.  No different than the severing of ligaments, the ripping on tendons, the snapping of bones or the burning of tissue.  And like these physically visible injuries, a scar is left. A souvenir photo that never fades to sepia.

We like to think it’ll leave us.  Because all past pains have eventually left us.  And when we look back we laugh and chuckle about the insignificance of the instigating issue.  But gut-chewing pain, real pain if you will, refuses to let go.  At first it’s excruciating.  Then it’s sharp.  Then it’s just dull.  And eventually it fades from memory almost completely.  But like my broken collarbone, when you hit it just right, or touch it just so, it hurts like hell all over again. 

And I guess the only good news is that the cliché is true.  Without pain we would not know love.  Plato spent pages upon pages trying to define love.  And if one of the Western world’s greatest philosophers couldn’t do it, then I am not bold enough to assert that I can.  But it makes me feel better to think that it hurts so much because I loved so much.  I found true love.  Not like, or lust, or passion, but love in its purest form.  And out hearts refuse to give up on such a great, rare and precious love.  The pain continues because we hold onto this filament of hope that one day, if not here than perhaps someone up above, we will meet this person again.  And our reason begs us to give up on this lunacy of hope, which slowly corrodes our sanity and builds this scar tissue of pain.  It’s the knowledge, that despite all logical reason and intelligent thought, we would gladly sever our right arm to have a guarantee that this person would return to us.  But this yearning, this obsession, this passion, this pain, does not exist without a great love having predicated it.  And we take comfort in the fact that this pain is the aftermath, the consequence perhaps, of love.

And I can’t promise you that the pain of losing her will go away.  In fact, I can guarantee that it won’t.  And I can guarantee that when it starts to fade, it will scare the shit out of you.  But don’t worry.  It doesn’t mean she is leaving you.  Or that she is any less real.  Or that you loved her any less.  It just means that time is playing it’s nasty little trick and actually healing you.  And I can guarantee that you will ache.  That you will drink yourself to the floor and that it will still hurt even on the floor.  But I can also guarantee that one morning and for once your hangover will hurt more than your heart.  And then eventually it will be a nasty, ugly scar, but it won’t hurt, unless you touch it just so.

Just know that the world is full of beauty and love and that its your right, your duty even, as a human being, to recognize this beauty in the world and keep on living for those who weren’t lucky enough to do that. And I’m always here for you.  And no matter where this winding road takes us, we’ll meet again at the end. And it is a winding road.  Be careful, if you blink you might miss it.