Day 283 (Two-Hundred & Twenty-Three) of 365 days
Love in itself is a chance you need to be willing to take. There is no love without risk and even worse than risk, there is no love without loss. Everything in life is a risk, but risking to open yourself up and fully give yourself to someone can be the hardest of them all. It is courageous to love because falling in love can be hard. Relationships have the potential to either end well or end horrifically, but the thing is, that’s the risk you have to be willing to take.
The reason relationships are so complicated is because of the people in them. People make them challenging and complex. Who can tell you before a relationship starts if you are gonna be toxic, or gonna be part of something very special? The risk everybody takes daily with love is a risk that can have a very giant reward, a big ring and a wedding. Some people are afraid to fall in love because they fear heartbreak, and I could say I’m that person. Telling people to take a chance on love is like telling them to get wet when they shower: There is no other way.
There’s no love without risk, and, worse, there’s no love without loss. It’s true, one can live without romantic love and avoid the messiness of breakups, the weirdness of in-laws, and the tedium of another person’s annoying habits. Without romantic love, you can skip those terrible hours when you lie in bed, not alone, which wouldn’t be so bad accompanied by chocolate ice cream and the 3 A.M. rerun of Law & Order—but instead, you’re next to the man or woman you share your life with, a person who, while claiming to love you, has let you down, disappointed you deeply, abandoned you when you were in great need. And, just as bad, you know you’ve done the same, and will again. If only perfect people loved, the species would have died before we got upright. And for all the pain and discomfort, and occasional boredom and unkindness, it’s still a chance worth taking, which is why happily married people talk about the bad times with the perspective and humour of successful gamblers, and unhappily married people curse the cards, the dealers, and the stars.
Falling in Love is stepping forward without knowing what is on the other side. It’s both breathing deeply and forgetting how to breathe at the same time, but trust that you’ll catch your breath when you fall into someone else’s arms. It is wanting nothing more than to run but believing that things will get better, that connections will deepen, that despite two people’s imperfection, something beautiful can be born. Love is no answers or guarantees, no promises of a forever, no reassurance or even backup plans. It is blind but intentional. Fearless, but not foolish. It is the searching and hoping and deciding that it’s better to fall and be broken than never feel anything at all. Falling in Love is the potential of being destroyed, of losing yourself, of walking away with a shattered heart and nothing to say for yourself except that you tried. It’s willingly handing over your heart, even when every thought running through your mind is hesitant. It’s quieting those voices. It’s saying yes.
Love is a risk. Risk of pain. Risk of heartbreak. Risk of security and stability and all that you’ve built up to protect yourself, suddenly being destroyed. But it’s a beautiful risk. It’s a worthy risk. It’s a complex and messy and filling and incredibly wonderful risk that we willingly take when we find someone whose heartbeat matches our own. And so we take it. Again and again. We step forward. We trust. We let go of the fear and the doubt and the hesitation and the caution from the world and we believe that two imperfect people can care about one another with everything they have. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes we break. Sometimes we shatter and have to learn to rebuild again.
But without risk, there’s no reward or knowing what could have been. Without risk, there’s nothing beautiful, nothing made or grown or built with fragile imperfect hands. Without risk, there is no true connection, no true emotion, no two bodies being brought together by fate and faith, chance and choice. Without risk, there is nothing real.
So yes, love is a risk. And we can’t avoid the beautiful danger!
