What If This Is All The Love You Ever Get?
Unless you’re one of a very specific few, you’ve probably at some point in your life fallen in love and had your heart broken.
If your story goes anything like mine, you may have even loved so intensely, and found out that the image you had of yourself and your relationship was so far wrong, that your entire perception of reality shattered around you upon being faced with the truth.
As time goes by, you become grateful for knowing the truth and being able to live more in accordance with it.
That said, you now know enough to understand how little you may actually know, you know?
Is Your Love a Finite Resource?
One of the thoughts that I couldn’t help having is perfectly summed up by the Snow Patrol song, ‘What If This Is All The Love You Ever Get?’.
It’s hard to imagine ever being able to love someone so intensely again when you know the only thing that allowed you to love them that way in the first place was your naivety, and you know you’ll never get that back.
Nor do you want it back ultimately.
Perhaps you could have gotten lucky to begin with, and fallen in love with someone who wouldn’t have caused that naivety to be viewed as a problem.
But what if being that naive meant you were never going to be with that kind of person in the first place?
Lessons In Love
I believe we’re drawn to people for the lessons they can teach us, about the world and ourselves.
I don’t believe that a relationship is only successful if it lasts forever, and consists of having 2.3 children in a nice country home with a white picket fence.
I believe the most successful relationships are the ones that allow you to fully explore your whole self, for better or for worse.
Our best intentions can only express themselves in the grand scheme of our lives if we are able to develop a clear understanding of all the elements of ourselves, and that includes having an understanding of all those things we might deem beautiful, hideous, or plain stupid.
Once we gain some understanding of those things, we can change how we interact with the world and ourselves, so that they can be expressed in more positive and effective ways.
Our core features aren’t inherently good or bad.
It’s how we implement them into our lives that decides whether they’re going to be expressed as a net positive or a detriment.
Can You Love So Intensely Without the Naivety of Youth?
In short, I do believe so.
Sure, the intensity will present itself in completely different ways to before.
You won’t be loving blindly anymore, which doesn’t quite match up to the romanticised version of love you might see in films, or hear about in classic romantic tales, but it must surely be worth so much more than that.
If you love blindly, you’re loving for the sake of love.
If you love with a deeper knowledge of yourself and others, then you’re loving for the sake of the person you’re with, and what they provide for you in terms of fulfilment and happiness.
That means you’ve been able to consider yourself, as well as your partner, and you’re choosing to dedicate a part of yourself to them, not despite all that goes with it, but because of it all.
That’s where love has a real meaning, because not just anyone can fill that space.
Real Love Is Worth More Than the Sum of Its Parts
All love comes with some amount of sacrifice, but when you understand that, you’re a lot better suited to finding someone worth taking that sacrifice on for, because what they provide is worth far more than anything you might have to give.
You’ll want to give it.
You might not love in the same way you did back then, but if you’re doing it right, your love should be constantly evolving as you do.
Otherwise, all that heartache and those lessons of love weren’t worth a thing, and I know you didn’t go through all that for nothing.
Those Who Become Jaded
On a final note:
We’ve all seen people who have been hurt in love and never allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to love strongly again, for fear of opening themselves up to all the pain that came with it the last time around.
That doesn’t have to be you.
Just have faith in the idea that you aren’t the same person you were then. You’re that person with a whole lot more experience, perspective, and understanding.
All this makes you much better equipped to not make the same mistakes again.
Besides, they’re only truly mistakes if you don’t allow them to improve you.
You get to choose whether they’re mistakes or blessings.
What If You Get Hurt Again?
You might get hurt again, and if you do, it just means there’s more for you to learn, and it’s better to grow through hurt than to stagnate comfortably.
It’s a price worth paying.
Everything has its ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sides.
That’s all dependent on the perspectives you choose to apply to those things.
Just embrace the process of feeling your full range of emotions, and be thankful at all times that you’re getting to live the human experience.