SOMEONE TO LOVE

                                              

There comes a time, after you suffer the loss of your soul mate, where you start to temper a little. Now you see more clearly, the hurt that consumed your every thought, and you just couldn’t conceive of ever getting hurt like that again. So you went into this little shell where no one could get at you. You put blinders on, and just concentrated on getting through each and every day. Only your friends and family could break through this circle, and even with them, you were somewhat guarded—making statements like “Never again.” You didn’t say that because it wasn’t good, for it was—maybe too good, and you thought with a bar that high, would I ever be happy again with someone else.

If there is one thing that can leave a gaping hole in the human heart, it’s not having someone to love and care for. Nurturing seems to come secondhand to us. At nursing homes, I have seen the blank faces of those who are all alone in the world; faces that were long ago filled with smiles, now filled with hurt and loneliness.  Yes, we do have our families and friends to love, but they have families and friends of their own, too, and try as you may to love them and socialize with them, in the end, they always go home. The door closes once more, and then it’s just you and your thoughts, and no one to share them with.

Slowly, but surely, we poke our heads back out of our shells and look around. All at once, you start to realize that you’re not the only one in this state of mind. If you can find someone to make happy, then you just made two people happy. You’re still guarded though, because families are complicated and you’re not just one carefree person anymore like you were fifty years ago. Now you’re also a dad or a mom, or a grandpa or grandma, and part of a package deal—and so are they. Taking someone by the hand and gliding off to some Shangri-La to live in bliss for the rest of your lives sounds good, but not that feasible because that would be selfish love.

William Purkey wrote, “There comes a time in your life when you have to dance like there is no one watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like there’s nobody listening, and live like its heaven on earth.” Yes, there comes a time when you have to let your guard down, and take those blinders off and be vulnerable once more. You open your heart, knowing there is a chance it might get broken again; and although you vowed it would never happen again, suddenly you’re willing to take that chance. For in your heart of hearts, you know that true love is usually scripted only in the films and when and if it happens to you again, it will be unexpected, and you have to be ready for it or it will pass you by. I think the great waking moment in two people’s lives is when there is no longer an “I” or a “you,” but just an “us.” In his book, “A Walk to Remember” Nicholas Sparks says, “Love is like the wind. You can’t see it, but you can feel it.”