'Tis Better to Have Loved and Lost...

Than never to have loved at all. ~Alfred Lord Tennyson - In Memoriam I was watching Good Will Hunting last night (one of my all-time favorites). With my favorite movies, it seems that each time I watch them, different scenes stand out. Last night, there was a scene in which Matt Damon is talking to his therapist, Robin Williams. In atypical therapy fashion, Damon is questioning Williams about his deceased wife. Damon asks Williams if he regrets having married a woman who subsequently dies a slow, painful death of cancer years later. If it was worth it to have loved someone and then lost them, causing so much pain. Williams answers Damon that he would not have changed a second of it, not even those moments that hurt the most. It made me think about the idea of loving and losing, of opening yourself to someone with the knowledge that it may end, and that ending can cause a lot of heartbreak. It's a scary proposition, loving someone. I have found myself, in the past, realizing that I like someone, and really hating that feeling. Because I know that when I like someone, I can get hurt. And getting hurt isn't fun. But I also know that, like Tennyson, it is worth it. It is better to have loved and lost than never to love. Because love brings so much into your life, at least I know it does to me. It brings happiness, it brings growth, it brings the motivation to give. It gives color to life, and causes me to learn so much about myself and others as well. When I think back on my past relationships, those relationships in which I allowed myself to really love another (and the truth is, this can't even be restricted to dating relationships, it is true for the closer of my friendships as well), even though many of them have ended, I grew tremendously from those experiences. Those relationships and the memories I have of them color the landscape of my past - I couldn't be the same person today without the love I felt in the past. So, as much as it sometimes scares me to let someone in - because when someone gets in, they do have that power to cause pain - I think it's worth it. Even a few moments of experiencing love is better than to not know what it is like to feel, to care, to love.