Have you ever been into massive , all-consuming love. That ‘I can’t believe this exists in the physical realm of this planet’ kind of love.
The kind of love that erupts into an uncontrollable blaze an then simmers down to embers and burns quietly, comfortably, for years. The kind of love they write novels and symphonies about. The kind of love that teaches more than you thought you could ever learn, and gives back infinitely more than it takes.
If you’re lucky, you get to meet the love of your life. You get to be with them, to learn from them, to give the whole of yourself over to them and allow their influence to change you in unfathomable measures. It’s an experience like nothing on earth.
But here is what the fairytales won’t tell you – sometimes we meet the loves of our lives, but we do not get to keep them.
We do not always get to hold onto the loves of our lives, because in the real world, love doesn’t conquer all. It doesn’t resolve irreparable differences, it doesn’t triumph over illness and disease, it doesn’t bridge religious rifts or save us from ourselves when we’re corrupting.
Some people can love you more in a year than others could love you in fifty. Some people can teach you more within a single day than others could teach you over the entire course of a lifetime.
Some people come into our lives only for a particular period of time, but make an impact that no one else can ever quite match or replace.
And who are we to call those people anything but the loves of our lives?
Who are we to downplay their significance, to rewrite their memories, to alter the ways in which they changed us for the better, simply because our paths diverged? Who are we to decide that we desperately need to replace them – to find a bigger, better, stronger, more passionate love that we can hold onto for a lifetime?
Maybe we just ought to be grateful that we got to meet these people at all.
