Ties that Bind:
If a person falls in love, loses the persona of their affection, and never loves again----what does that say about their social limitations? Maybe recovery from loss is related to the circumstances of the loss. Some losses may simply be irreplaceable, or some losses very forsaken, carried out with isolated social support. Age sometimes plays a role---the old are supposed to die while the loss of a young person is more difficult to accept. Some separations are more unimaginable, others more run of the mill. Some relationships, consisting of two uncommon personalities, are destroyed by external pressures, and by their very uncommon personas, be destined for an oblivion not of their own choosing. "It is best to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all". True, but this is little consolation to the losers. It is, of course, better to have reached and played in the Super Bowl and have lost, than to never have played in a Super Bowl. The trouble is, the greater the stakes, the greater the loss; the greater the loss, the greater the personal toll. A great loss, like a great victory, often creates a great crack in a carefully fortified psyche.
Understanding the complexity of love lost demands analysis beyond the pale of human intellectual capacity. In some sense a truly SUCCESSFUL love affair CANNOT BE DESTROYED, since the essence of lessons learned and emotions felt from the relationship are permanent, guiding beacons of spirit and understanding present TILL DEATH.
We have all heard it before. Time heals all. This too shall pass. When one chapter closes another chapter opens. Still, the healing hand of time is a misnomer. Time just dulls---and only sometimes---the pain. The worst losses are those resulting from bad decisions, poor choices, and pressures from outside sources or situations. A death to a chance accident, a heart attack, etc. carries with it the unavoidableness of the parting. A parting avoidable by different choices of one or both of the participants opens the door for lasting regrets. Lasting regret does not bode well for closure, or for replaceable relationships.
A LOT OF LIFE IS LOSS. Loss, it seems, is the price for having something to begin with. Whatever it is one seeks, and then gains, will be lost---sooner or later. Everything, it seems, exists on borrowed time. Time is King. We are evolution's helots. The harder it is to achieve something, the greater the loss when it is gone. The deeper the emotional bonds, the greater the loss. Anything earned, of any preciousness, always ends, and we, in the long run, are all dead. TIME Stays, WE Go.
Of course the object is to make our lives a great run, to have had good experiences, to be lucky in health and financial security----to appreciate diversity well enough to reach a plateau of contentedness with others of varied ilk, and feel the commonality of purpose in God's created evolutionary process. THERE IS NO NEED TO KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS in order to enjoy the gift of life, or to follow the innate ethics of human nature. Creating a God in our own image, who thinks like us, who protects us individually, and connects with us through inherited religious dogma is really a self serving, self destructive, furtive grasping at straws---which too often creates massive needless turmoil---within a nation, and across the globe. There is no reason to feel God's evolutionary process will not continue for millions of years as it already has, and that, with time, the human species, or a new species, will not overcome our own current limitations and self destructive irrational nuances. This is the nature of evolution.
Love and friendship, I guess, are simply matters of degree. Love is an umbrella term applied differently by different people. Each love is unique, each friendship is unique. Neither can be guaranteed to last. Most really don't, at least not in their original form. Time changes all relationships, for better or worse, and I always admire those who can handle altered relationships without the blame game, the anger, the name calling, and the 'now you are going to pay and pay big' mentality which prevails so often. Mellowed out live-and-let live grateful people will live their lives far more contented than those of a more revengeful bent. I mean really, get even for what? The many good times? The many contributions to your own developed personality? I think the smartest people are those who are able to recognize when the good feelings have changed, and someone no longer views you with the same charitable good feelings of the past. Or vice versa. Just because someone tires of you, or you of them, does not mean someone has to receive blame. Even the best of Broadway shows cannot be popular forever. To attempt to nurture a relationship past it's time not only will fail, but just reach increasingly acrimonious levels. The only rational approach is to appreciate all the good times and support past, let the laughter and fun of the past be the fodder for your feelings, and never put down a past friend or lover to other people using a long list of their faults and shortcomings---faults and shortcomings which obviously you once either didn't see or didn't care about. It is better to live with fond memories of the relationship than a long list of critical uncomplimentary final parting shots with which people often let loose at the end of a relationship. The 'death do us part' mentality is one of the worse concepts ever created by human ignorance, and is at it's worse when we attest this longevity to be decreed by God. How many marriages, claimed by priests to have been put together by God, really last? If nothing else clearly demonstrates priests of any sort do not speak for God, therein is the proof. Consecrated by God? I think not, and if it were so, the marriage would always last.
I personally think it best to fully understand some relationships will fail because we are the one to drift away, politely or otherwise, for this reason or that reason, and other relationships will fail because someone else drifts away, politely or otherwise, for this reason or that reason. The goal, it seems to me, should be to ensure that when one drifts away, it is never done with any parting shots of ridicule, character assassination, or other shots meant to put the other person down, teach them a lesson, or give them reason to retaliate in kind. The goal of being a good friend, however long or short the friendship, is to NOT DO THAT. The only time tit for tat is justified among friends is if the friend is nicely breasted---then a tat might be in order.
