Well it’s been a long while and I suppose there probably aren’t many of you out there still checking this, if any at all. I don’t think I mind. The thought that I’m writing for the first time in months without an audience is somehow, liberating.

I’ve been a bit of a recluse lately, not just from here, though this certainly wins the medal for most ignored, but from myself really. It’s been eating away at me for awhile now and as I ignore it I just become more withdrawn. More apathetic.

Oh, I’ve had my moments. In a lot of ways it’s been a fabulous five months. I’ve been accepted to graduate school and will be moving to Massachusetts in August. I’ll leave almost all my family and friends and hand myself over to an entirely new world with one cousin as my only safety net. I’m not afraid. I will be lonely, and I will miss everyone and most likely, at least once, I’ll have a good heart-wrenching cry. But it’s time.

It seems like I’ve started countless posts only to delete them before they ever really get going. Wouldn’t you know it would take another obsession with a story to bring me back out again. I don’t think I’ll share what story because I don’t feel that is important, but I do feel I need to get my thoughts out there. Even if they’re only for me.

It’s odd this love thing. I’ve remarked on it many times in the past. Sometimes with, what I hope could be called a little insight, and sometimes like a bloody fool. I’ve ranted in anger. I’ve ranted in pain. But I don’t think I’ve ever really told the truth. The truth is something more than scary—the truth is frightening as hell.

The truth is I’m afraid.

I know what love is, you understand. And I know that true love, the love that shakes the mountains and boils the seas…well, you don’t get to keep that kind of love. People sometimes scoff romance novels; they say it’s all a lie and life isn’t like that. They’re right, but not in the way they know. True love does exist, and it is absolutely the most beautiful thing in the universe. But we don’t get to keep it. True love requires sacrifice and I suppose it would be easy to say we’ve all heard the cliché let’s move on with the story, but the reason this thought is worth hearing out—the reason this thought is anything new at all—is because you never have true love, not really, until you’ve made the sacrifice.

That’s the trick you see. We can love with all our hearts, we can fully believe we are willing to die for the ones we love, but that’s easy. Loving with all your heart is easy. Dying for the one you love is easy. When you die you don’t have to worry about going on. If you’re dead, what’s to worry about? But what if it’s not your job to die, but to kill? What if, you have to let go of the one you love—the one you love more than your own life—to do what is right?

That’s why true love doesn’t exist until that second. That’s why certain couples grow old, happy with each other. Ignorance is bliss. Love is tested and love is genuine, but true love…well, true love means loving everything. True love means loving life. True love means that even if you each want nothing more than to be with each other you just say no.

I know it sounds crazy. What scenario could I possibly be dreaming up in this twisted little head of mine? It’s not a particularly pleasant idea, even to me. But there is a difference between loving too much, and loving truly. The true lover stops when he sees what is happening. He stops when he sees the consequences. The one who loves too much just keeps going—keeps grasping at the sandcastle trying to protect it from the rising tide. Trying to change the world. And that’s the real shit of it.

The world is a living place. You can make that argument using New Age mumbo-jumbo Mother Nature garbage, or you can make that argument pointing out the cause-effect relationships of every human being, animal, and plant on this planet. It’s all alive. And it’s all connected. And sometimes, to preserve the purity of that life we have to give up that we most want.

Tragedies irritate me so because they miss the point. It isn’t about dying for one another. In Romeo and Juliet there was no reason for Romeo to kill himself when he thought her dead. Nothing to be gained from it, no lesson to be learned. Not for him anyway. Relieving yourself, running away from the pain isn’t true love. That’s loving too much. And yes, you can love too much, just like you can eat too much, smoke too much, or sleep too much. Love is not a pure ideal. Not the way it exists for us anyway.

And therein lies the second thought tonight. I once refused to tell a high-school boyfriend I loved him because at the tender age of fourteen I knew I would never marry him and thus thought I couldn’t possibly love him. If I could live without him it couldn’t be love could it? I didn’t understand how people could say "love isn’t enough" or not choose to be with someone they cared about. But love is a malleable thing; when have human hearts ever felt clearly about anything? Even parents don’t always like their children. I loved my high-school sweatheart and sometimes love isn’t enough, because love is only one part of the equation.

True love implies pure love. And there are very few things in our world that, in their pure state, aren’t deadly. Why should love be any different? And, with all the different types of love in the human heart, why do we think true love exists only between a romantic couple? What of true love between friends? What of true love between a parent and a child?

Love is a chemistry equation. Lust + Compromise + Humor + Adrenaline + Hope + Stubbornness = Romantic Love. Take out the lust and you’ve flipped over into Friendship. Take out the Adrenaline and you’ve got what exists between a parent and the child.

But true love, that is something altogether different. On some level I think we all know this. That’s why we hide it behind religion, "You can’t understand God’s plan" and Hollywood. We create vehicles to express what we know is out there and are afraid to grasp.

Most likely no one will agree with me on this. I could explain it further, but…it’s not my place to do that. It’s possible I’ve said too much, but perhaps I’ve said just enough. It’s also possible no one will ever read this and thus I needn’t worry.
But if you should stumble across these words think about what I’ve said. They mean nothing by themselves—their power comes only from how it relates to your life.

Are you afraid to understand the lesson of love? I still am. But I’m most afraid it’s already too late.