NOT FOR ADULTS?

For some time now, I have believed that love, like so much else, is wasted on the young.
After all, who among us was wise enough at a young age to realize just how important and precious love is? And how many among us have, for reasons known only to the foolish young, spurned the great love of our lives, only to spend the rest of our lives hoping it will come back around to us once more?
More than a few, I am sure.
I am reconsidering that idea, however. Because while love may well visit us when we are older and wiser, that does not mean we will place as much importance or worth on love. In fact, age and experience may well make us even greater fools than our younger selves.
Because we may well forgo love for other, much less important things, such as security, peace (as in lack of temporary turmoil), harmony, even some adult form of peer pressure (as in "What will everyone think? That I'm some horny old (wo)man?"). Or we may just pass on having love because we think, well, that we're just too old for such nonsense.
Maybe only the young are able to risk it all for love. Maybe only they are able, in that youthful exuberance that believes anything is possible, to think love will make everything work out, that love can and will solve any and all problems that come along.
And maybe we, older adults, having lived through relationships that did not include love, simply don't want to endure the endless numbers of frogs we have to meet in order to find that one, singular prince(ss) who is out there, waiting for us. If, indeed, he/she is still out there at all.
Maybe love is not wasted on the young, but is a waste on those of us not so young anymore. For while the young may not realize that love doesn't just come around every day, if they truly do love someone at least they probably won't be afraid of giving it a shot. Lord knows, some of us "adults" certainly are. Some of us are more afraid of love than of a life lived without it.
And that, my friends, is truly a tragedy.

CHOOSE LOVE

If you awoke tomorrow and were told, in no uncertain terms, that you could go on living for another 50 years, but without love in your life, or you could have the love of your life but for only a brief period before you died, which would you choose?
None of us, of course, really gets that decision. None of us gets to know how long she or he has on this planet. We live out our days as if they go on forever even though we know, in our minds, that our time on the earth is finite. But how different would our choices and decisions be if we acknowledged that our time was, indeed, short?
Especially our decisions about love.
So often we put off love, ignore love or just consider it something we'll get around to one of these days. Or we spend our lives searching for some ideal love and miss out on the real love that is right in front of us. Then again, sometimes we find the love of our lives only to lose him or her because this other person is not ready, too afraid or simply not willing to risk everything for the possibility of a life filled with the love they honestly and earnestly seek.
You can make a lot of money, you can become an international success, or you can truly love someone. Which do you think is the greatest accomplishment?
You don't have to take my word for it, but I'll choose love.
Every time.

THE NOBLE THING

As a kid, I always admired the men in books, movies and TV shows who would do the right and noble thing, even if it was the exact opposite of what they wanted. They made sacrifice look good. And, unfortunately, they also tended to make it look easy.
So I grew up believing I could make that same sacrifice and do the noble and right thing if and when the time came. And there were times when I did, in small things and in small ways. And while it was harder than fiction had made it appear, I still handled it, thinking that the noble and right thing was not all that hard. Why didn't everyone act this way?
Then along came love. Not just "love," but "L-O-V-E-!" The love of my life, the end of a lifetime of searching, the one person around whom revolves my whole life and whole reason for living. It was then, and now, that I learned and am learning just how painful and difficult it is to do this right and noble thing, to put the needs and wants of the one I love ahead of anything I may desire. In my mind I know this is the right thing to do, but my heart hurts at the choice I must make and live with (although I would hardly call this living). In my mind I know I can do this because it is for her good and her good comes first, but in my heart I just want what I want, to love her and be with her and spend every moment of the rest of my life with her.
Instead I have had to let her walk way and only wait and hope that time, and God, will somehow bring us back together. And if that doesn't happen, then live out the rest of my days in misery, knowing only that I at least had some small period of time with the love of my life.
I am not giving up on her, or on the "us" that once existed. I am not quitting. I am doing what she asked of me, doing what she said she needs of me, because I still love her.
I am trying to do the right and noble thing, as hard and painful as that is. What I am learning is that it is one thing to choose the right and noble thing, but that is just the first step. The hardest part is living with your decision.