Love Lies

We usually know how we enter love, but not how we’ll leave it.

We can say clearly where we were when it started, how we felt, what excited us, what dreams we had, and how the flow of daily life looked like. The beginning is vivid. There’s excitement, curiosity, anticipation and hope.

But how we exit it? That’s a mystery we prefer not to think about.

Most things have an end, yet we avoid imagining the moment love leaves our lives, just like we avoid thinking about death. We pretend it will never touch us.

I read somewhere that we lie to ourselves twice in love.

First, we exaggerate the good at the beginning,  so we have the courage to enter it, we amplify every smile, every touch, every whispered promise. We build dreams untouched by reality.

Then, we fatten up the bad. Magnifying every slight, every misunderstanding and every wound. We build a fortress of grievances, seeking solace in our self-made prison of sorrow. We tell ourselves that version so it hurts a little less, so we feel strong enough to walk away, with a little peace and some logic.

The lie at the beginning and the one at the end creates some kind of equilibrium. They are the book ends of our love stories, framing them in a way that makes them bearable. They allow us to enter love with open hearts and to exit with a sense of closure, however imperfect

And in the space between those lies, the truth of love resides. It is not all good, or bad, it is complex, dual, light and shadow. Real.

Love is in the shared moments of connection, the shared laughter, the silent understanding, the tears, the conflicts, the arguments, the goodbyes.

Love is messy and magnificently glorious.