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.