"Don't You Try to Tell Me That Love is All you Need..."

The last couple of months have been a long and winding road that have lead me on a soul search. I’m certain I’m not done with this search yet, but it has led me thus far to the conclusion that love is a Catch-22.

Love makes life worth living. And when I say love I don’t mean romantic exclusively. I mean any love. Love of a child, love of a pet, love of family, love of a job, love of a hobby, and yes, romantic love too. That being said love gives us something to live for. I honestly believe the answer to the age old question ‘what is the meaning of life?’ is ‘Love’.

The problem with this is that with great love comes great pain. When you give your heart to something wholly and fully it leaves you open to immense pain that is bound to leave holes. I haven’t figured out yet how to feel these holes once they exist. The loss of a love…or someone or something you love…it colors your life. It shadows every happiness that comes after it.

That brings me to my next point, is love worth it? If love is the meaning of life then does that mean we’re destined to go through life acquiring more and more holes? Does that mean that we’re all doomed to pain or shadowed happiness? I suppose the answer is not to love, which is where I’m at now. Avoiding those close attachments. Avoiding loving anything too much. The problem here is that when you stop loving you also stop having a reason to carry on. At least that is the case with me.

By putting up walls and making it so that I don’t let any love in I also have effectively made myself little more than a shell of everything I was. Those holes of what I lost persist but now it’s a shell with holes. That sounds weird. Let me try to put that another way. In other words the happiness I feel is tempered. I feel like I’m going through the motions of life but under the smiles and bubbly exterior I show the world is a very deep emptiness.

If the answer is to love wholly again I’m not sure I can because I’m not sure I can go through more holes when I lose what I gave my love to. Then again without that whole love I don’t feel like life is worth living…thus the Catch-22.

I’m sure this journey is far from over. I still have self discovery to come to, of this I am sure. I am also sure the two biggest holes in me cannot be filled and will continue to haunt me for a very, very long time to come. That is to say that the moment I’m alone and not busy with work or chores I think about those who left those two holes. The pain is overwhelming sometimes.

I guess I don’t really know what the answer is, but I do know this…I’m discovering things about love, pain, and myself that I wish I never would have had to find out.

And so dear readers I leave you with this (which couldn't be more fitting if I wrote it myself...sorry for the foreign ads): "Bones and a Name"