My song today is “I’ve Loved and Lost Again.” This song was sung by Patsy Cline in her third compilation album.
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When each of us falls in love, we naturally plan to stay in love, but unfortunately, ‘staying in love’ is much harder than falling in love. For a start, ‘falling in love’ can be both illusional or real, and it is an experience we do not will; it just happens! Falling in love is a romantic event that lies largely beyond our control, whereas if we do find ourselves in love, we do exercise some influence as to whether we stay in love.
We can love another person to distraction and then find that they do not love us back, or even if they do, they do not love us in the same way and with the same degree of intensity as we love them. Love means so many different things to different people. What I do believe is that love lasts, as long as love is. That is my belief.
I believe that for love to last, love must ‘be’. Love must be beneficial: love must be constant: love must be true: love must be of the real world and not that of the imagined. For love to be beneficial, it needs to be a tangible, positive and self-enhancing presence in our life. Whether it be our thoughts, our feelings, or our actions, love does not lead to negative thoughts, love does not make us feel unhappy or unwanted, and love does not influence us to look backward. If love does not make one float above all care and concern, then it is not 'love' we feel but sheer physical attraction or mere infatuation that stirs and confuses us.
When I am in love, I possess the strength and determination of a titan and can take on the world if need be. And though it is love that positively guides me and my partner, the flip side of your love can show selfishness that excludes all other people in the world from your orbit of contentment. When one is in love, the world and all its inhabitants can choose to do its own thing, and its consequences will not unduly concern you. So long as your world contains yourself and your loved one in splendid isolation, all others temporarily take second place in your overall list of immediate concerns.
For our love to last, we need to be able to see it, feel it, sense it, and touch it! We also need to hear it. So often I have heard a marriage partner or a parent say to their spouse or child, “I may not say it often or demonstrably show it with hugs, cuddles, and kisses, but you know I love you?“ Oh no, they don’t! Whoever we are, as humans we need reassurance, and the only way that one person can reassure another that they are loved is by reaffirmation; by telling them so with the words “I love you” and reaffirming that assertion by showing and demonstrating their love, by touch, cuddles, hugs, kisses, etc.
Though love can be everlasting, it is always of the moment. While there is no shelf-life on the extension of true love, while love can last forever, it rarely does. Love is constant in its presence, and it is constant in its benefits. However, to remain constant in its positive impact, love needs to be constantly nurtured, never neglected. Just like a fresh pint of milk or the fresh loaf of bread, if not consumed at its best, and left neglected, it will go sour to taste and stale to touch. Love lives as long as life is breathed into it, but when we leave love out on the wing unattended and alone, it will surely die.
However often one hears the old adage that it is ‘better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”, I believe that assertion to still run true.
Love and peace
Bill xxx