Another experiential truth: realistic love

In my short time on this earth, I’ve learned a few things in comparison to the vast and limitless lessons that continue to elude me.

The following truth is ever present but consistently ignored when one engages in relationships.

This is that to love someone is to set yourself up to be hurt. As fatalistic as that might sound, it is what life has taught me.

Everyone I have loved, romantically especially, has hurt me. Even the one who said that she would never hurt me like the others did, disappointed me in ways the others didn’t.

The twist to this is I can’t blame her. After all she is only human and prone to her emotions and desires. In me however lies a responsibility to myself that I failed to acknowledge.

This is that my happiness shouldn’t be determined by others or their actions and that by attaching myself to another sentient being, I was awarding, perhaps unconsciously, someone else authority over my happiness.

In trying to find my happiness separate from the person, I have learned once again that love and pain are two sides to the same coin. One can’t exist without the other.

Furthermore I have learned that no one is incapable of hurting another and it is that my next partner will hurt me.

I will just have to henceforth take a more realistic approach to love -whatever that means.