Is it Worth It?

Love can be a tricky thing

There’s a photo of you two, arms wrapped around each other, smiling as if you never want to let each other go. You didn’t know it then, but that was going to become true.

People always talk about true love as if it’s easy. True love is meant to take your heart into the heavens and let you soar along like a carefree cloud. No one tells you that true love means days of crying and pain and heartbreak.

You can’t feel heartbreak without love though.

People say it’s worth it, all the pain is worth the love. Everything was meant to be worth the love, and there are times when you wonder if that’s true. They never tell you that true love means making sacrifices. That it means giving up your family and your friends and your cheese. You’re going to miss the cheese.

Is it worth it?

People don’t tell you that people in love fight. That they are selfish and indifferent and stubborn. You’re stubborn. Love doesn’t always see you through. It doesn’t make you reply to every I love you with another one, or smile when they say something sweet.

True love makes you wonder if life is really all about love. It makes you see the joy that you had in singleness, and the gratefulness of everything you could do then that you’ve given up. It makes you look around at the world and see it as more than a place full of happy couples, and see it as a place full of people. Other important people. People that may be worth more than true love.

Is it worth it?

At end of the day you look at the photo, and the smiles on your faces. You know that the smile is temporary, and that amongst every photo is the uncaptured moments of pain and heartbreak. True love means fighting and arguing and wishing that things could be different. But it also means forgiving, and remembering why you’re there. In every fight and moment of heartbreak, always wanting to return to that moment where your arms are wrapped around each other, and you smiling as if you never want to let go.

So you slip the ring onto your finger, and you never let go.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

I've never been married in 64 years (nor have I had a longterm relationship of any kind) so I might feel exactly like this, second-guessing the whole bunch of bullshit, if I were to be poised on the brink of walking up to some alter to marry some bloke. Your little essay gives off the perfectly realistic tenor of a person that's making a commitment VERY RELUCTANTLY! (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[Samuel Dickens]

And that is pretty much how it goes. Sometimes ecstasy, sometimes agony, and we'll endure the most terrible storms just to see a bit of blue. Nice writing--I enjoyed reading it.

[Archia]

Thank you so much for reading.