The paradox of love is that the deeper you’re in it, the more vulnerable you are to the pain of its loss.
That’s what makes love so scary.
Its impermanence. Its fragility. The fact that it comes with no guarantee.
People promise forever… to have and to hold, for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both shall live… and yet, often end up getting divorced well before they’re anywhere close.
And it doesn’t take many deep experiences of pain before guardrails are built.
And what many people might do is put a throttle on their love. Hold back. Build safety mechanisms that prevent them from going all in and risk feeling a proportionally deep pain again.
But… that’s the paradox of love. The less vulnerable you are to the pain of its potential loss… the more shallow the love will feel.
And shallow love is no way to love.
It is indeed as Lord Tennyson suggests, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
Maybe it’s just that we shouldn’t promise forever… and should promise instead to always love fully. No throttles. No holding back. No assumption that now will take care of forever.
Just the promise of no guardrails. Not with you. Not in any of the renewing nows.
Just a limitless sky above and bottomless pit of the emotional spectrum.
For you. For me. For us.
P.s. This idea is what inspired the poem, Don’t Say Forever.