...worthy of a repeat performance:
On Love & Risk
Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything that it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.
-Erica Jong
Thinking very seriously on that last sentence. Sometimes I want to take the "no risk" path for my own self-protection, but I always seem to come back to the conclusion that, if I don't risk, I don't really live. Love is tough. LIFE is tough. I see people all around me who are hurt--to the point of devastation, even--by the end result of their choice to love someone who walked away/violated the trust/broke the promise/repeated the whispered confession/refused to respond. Fill in the blank with a million different things.
And then I see those "happy plastic people"--the ones who don't risk, who guard their heart behind a safe brick wall. They're unbruised and unscarred and unruffled--hair combed in place, pants neatly pressed and creased, collars starched and stiff. Smiles starched and stiff. Plastic. Their hearts playing house in the safety of a gated community. Plastic. Happy? Umm...
There's just too much to lose on that road. I don't want to risk missing life in the fullest...even if it means devastating sorrow at times. That kind of sorrow pushes me to look up, to reach up...to soar to the heights of happiness and giddiness and all the wonderful stuff that comes with loving people.
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6 comments:
I like my life a bit messy. I like a good fight now and then. I like the surprises that come. I like the way children take you places you NEVER wanted to go. How they are so able to say the wrong thing at the perfect time to embarass you completely. I like my love passionate, and unbridled. And a little messy. Great thoughts. Sparked someting in me.
Dear Dena,
Just don't believe the lie that you can't be happy and truly in love. Love does come at a price, but only the price of giving up what isn't really us in the first place. Love, good, happy, powerful, love is possible. Don't listen to those things that say it isn't.
I love you!
PS- I have that kind of love.
I read "love" in this post as referring more to the all-inclusive type of love, not just romantic love. And in that sense, I completely relate to everything you're sharing--your hurt, your fears, your hesitations, your renewed conviction to move forward again anyway. That's been the theme of the past year of my life, and I'm just starting to take those baby steps forward again.
That's exactly where I am, E. I've experienced and witnessed so much hurt and betrayal in the past year...and most of it hasn't been of the "romantic love" sort.
It's scarier somehow for me to take steps forward in the non-romantic arenas--I guess it's because I expect hurt to come from the romance direction and am never all that surprised in the long run when it rears its ugly head and slaps me in the face. (It never keeps me down for long, though--I always come back for more!) ;-)
I've just come to a renewed realization that love truly IS at the core of everything I am...I was first imagined by a loving creator, I'm a product of my parents' love for each other, my hope and future exist ONLY because love paid my price.
How could I, in the face of all that evidence pleading love's case, make any other choice? But sometimes I do. And I don't want to be one of those plastic, self-protecting people...my mom used to tell me to stop making faces or I might freeze like that--I don't want to be a little frozen plastic replica of a person!
...even if it means devastating sorrow at times. That kind of sorrow pushes me to look up, to reach up...
this last statement actually reminded me of that fantastic song covered by many, "hallelujah"
the verse in particular -
your faith was strong but you needed proof
you saw her bathing on the roof
her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
she tied you to the kitchen chair
she broke your throne and cut your hair
and from your lips she drew a hallelujah
i shan't forget the powerful epiphany i had at that moment upon hearing this for the first time. the mixed imagery of david and samson and their similar situations. how they ran off after things they should not have, and how at the end, after they had what they wanted and received their full recompense, in the midst of their brokenness, they both sought to be closer to their first love.
i wept and wept and wept at a love so great it would surround me, even in the midst of my mistakes and grievous errors. a love that will always draw me back to that place of hallelujah, no matter the circumstance.
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