The Risks Involved in Loving Someone
Photo Credit: David Goehring
This little lyrical beauty (the title quote, that is) has been swimming around in my head for a few weeks now. As I’ve said before, my husband loves country music, and while on vacation, I got my fair share of it.
I’ve heard this song before by Lady Antebellum (“Need You Now” – and it’s not a favorite of mine; I object for reasons of morality and stupidity), but this particular line popped out:
“I’d rather hurt than feeling nothing at all.”
I wondered if I agreed with that. Is it really better feel hurt and pain than to feel nothing? Really?
And it reminded of all sorts of other things written on the same subject. I thought of that book The Giver, the story of a utopian society that has eliminated pain – but also eliminated any kind of emotions in the process as well. No feelings – all of them thrown out with pain in one fell swoop. It reminded me of Spock, from Star Trek, who is all head and no heart. I thought of the quote by Tennyson: “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
Really?
Is it really better to love and feel – knowing that there is an inevitable risk of pain and a likely probability of it as well – than not to experience that slippery emotion of love at all?
This blessing and curse of our emotions.
I can remember when I disagreed. I can remember my feelings, just on the heels of an awful break-up in my late twenties. We weren’t super, super serious. We had only dated for about 9 months. He wasn’t even the greatest guy in the world. Objectively, I certainly was better off for the break-up – and I was even the one who broke it up. But for reasons I still to this day cannot explain, I was devastated. I mean, devastated. Crushed.
I’m embarrassed to think of how I couldn’t keep it together. I remember sitting in Friendly’s with my mom for lunch, and I just started crying out of nowhere. I remember being at the dinner table at home – the same thing. I remember going into the bathroom stall in between teaching classes and sobbing. I couldn’t even think about it with becoming a pile of tears. I was a wreck. And I wasn’t 17. I was 28.
And I can remember standing by my classroom door, picking up my phone for some reason and thinking about this quote by Tennyson – maybe I had just taught it. I remember thinking that this mad poet must have been out of his ever-loving mind. This was, in no way, by any exaggerated stretch of the imagination, better than not loving at all. Not by a long-shot. I would have rather kept my feelings to myself than feel what I was feeling.
Now, you could argue that what I felt for my ex probably wasn’t love and that I was mourning probably more for selfish reasons, and in retrospect, I might be obliged to agree. But in my heart, it felt like love, and at that moment, I didn’t think the pain was worth the love.
No thanks, I’ll pass.
I think hope I’ve grown a little since that experience, and hopefully I don’t look at life with the same melodramatic eyes. But I will never forget the pain I felt from that experience.
It wasn’t my first heart-ache or crush or break-up, but for whatever reason, it was the first time I ever felt the frightening emotion of despair. I seriously was scared I wouldn’t bounce back.
Well, that was 11 years ago, and I’m all well and good, but I still can feel that vague twinge of pain even now when I think back on that.
So, is it better to love and lose, than not to love at all? Is it better to hurt than to feel nothing at all?
My answer is yes. I can give you lots of reasons why, but I’m going to quote my most favorite author, C.S. Lewis. I think he says it best:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
That’s why. That’s why I say yes.
To choose not to love is to take away what makes us human, what makes us alive. If we don’t even hurt anymore, it’s like we have almost become soul-less. Dead inside. Zombies. To hurt means that you are alive.
Love always is a gamble. There is no safe, guaranteed, sure-fire way to play the game of love to make sure you always have the emotional upper-hand; in fact, to love I think you willingly give up your upper-hand. There is always risk. Always. Even when you are smart about it.
Love and pain are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have love without the potential of pain. When you love someone, the loss of that person will inevitably produce pain; the residual pain is the proof that love existed.
To spare ourselves from pain, we hole up, and the same bricks we use to barricade ourselves from pain also barricades ourselves from love.
Better to love and lose? Yes.
Better to hurt than feel nothing at all? Yes.
Better to be alive and human and passionate than to just exist safe, guarded, closed-up in a prison of our own self-protection? Yes.
Yes to them all.
Lady A, I think you got it right this time.
Photo Credit: BK
Love this! And in the world of TTC it can be so hard. Putting yourself in such a vulnerable situation where hurt is possible, but worth the risk in the end. And then when a child does come, it’s love and hurt like nothing else. And also so worth it.
I know it! You fall in love with that little one long before they arrive. Choosing not to love b/c fear of loss isn’t natural (understandable, but not natural!). Always worth it to love, I think. Thanks for your thoughts, here!
I can think of Eric Fromm’s The Art of Loving as an example of the action of doing something that implies a decision and a follow-through. Life is about loving. It is not about standing to the side and not participating. And this early question about the first person, whom you really didn’t think you loved, it was about you and you in relationships that may have made you cry.
I have felt broken-hearted or hurt that women haven’t reciprocated my attraction for them. I knew my ex-wife didn’t love me, but when she asked me to marry her or she would move on, I said yes, because it was what I wanted. Later, five years later, when we divorced, I said to myself: “Why would someone waste five years being married to someone if they didn’t love them?” Actually, she wanted a child and I did not but only because I didn’t feel secure in work. I still don’t. But, we were incompatible on so many levels, but I was in love with her, so it didn’t matter to me.
I have always felt this way. If I love than I love. I hope the other person will come around, but so far they have not. This is not to say that I am easy to live with because I know not knowing what I am supposed to be when I grow up that this makes me a whinny sod. But, I love my exes because of how amazing they are.
Thanks for such a thoughtful reply. I think you hit the nail on the head – we love b/c of the other person – b/c they are worth loving, not for all the good feelings and things we get in return. Don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing when it is reciprocated, but genuine love has to transcend that. There’ s a certain vulnerability that only can come in loving. It lets down our emotional guard. It takes a lot of inner strength to love…definitely not for the faint of heart!
Thanks so much for your comments!
Yes, to love is for our benefit.
Great post, I could relate so well. I have been on both sides – the hurt side and the feeling nothing side. And it is easier to feel nothing, but that isn’t living.
So true. Definitely easier. Safer…but in the end, comes with a very high cost!! Better to love, I think!
Thanks so much for your comments! 🙂
Awesome post. Thanks for sharing your heart. Love C.S.Lewis as well and that quote was so good for me to read. Have you ever read Tim Hansel’s “You Gotta Keep Dancing”? It’s such a great book. Talks about risk, trusting God, and the belief that the height of or joy is often commensurate with the depths of our sorrow. Your post reminded me so much of his words…and I read it ages ago. Have a great weekend! (P.S. still praying :). )
I haven’t read that book, but it sounds awesome! I will definitely look it up! Thanks for the recommendation! And thank you so much for your prayers. Truly means so much! 🙂
Amen!
So much food for thought here, Kate. And I love the C.S. Lewis quote. Sure gives me pause re: building a fortress around one’s heart…
Lewis is my favorite, hand’s down. He can take a concept and open it up in a way like no other! Thank you for coming by! 🙂
Great post, and I agree, but it certainly didn’t feel like it during the times I got dumped. I teach The Giver to seventh graders, and it always generates great discussions about the value of pain, something most 12 years olds haven’t thought about yet.
I know… the feelings at the time were awful, weren’t they! Ugh! But no one escapes, unless they lock themselves up emotionally.
Love that The Giver is still being read. And that kids are thinking through those things. I often thought that The Giver would be a great read in high school (and as adults), when the reader has a little more ‘life experience’ under his belt!
PS – Have a great year!
Great post! I think you’re so right with this quote, “It wasn’t my first heart-ache or crush or break-up, but for whatever reason, it was the first time I ever felt the frightening emotion of despair. I seriously was scared I wouldn’t bounce back.” It is that fear that stops us from pursuing whatever hurt us. But we always do bounce back, eventually.
I still remember that feeling. I remember thinking, ‘So this is what it feels like to be crazy.’ Very scary. Thankfully, I bounced back! It really does build a strength you don’t know you have!
Great quote by C.S. Lewis. Thanks for your thoughts on this topic. I think I agree, although if you’d have asked me in the midst of the worst pain, I might have had a different answer. Hindsight really clarifies things!
So true. I definitely felt differently during the time! But I really think it’s God who makes the difference, not just time.