I'm sure everyone has heard the Tennyson poem ending:
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Than never to have loved at all.
But is it true?
Is it really better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all?
Considering I've never been in love and therefore have never lost love I can not profess to be an authority on love and loss, but the upcoming holiday has planted seeds of cynicism in my mind.
After all...over half of all marriages end in divorce these days.
Thinking it over in my mind I keep telling myself that it would be better to have never loved than to have lost a love, but that seems so cynical.
But I don't think Tennyson was necessarily talking about marriage.
For example, I love my dog.
Nothing makes me happier than picking my dog up from the vet. Seeing him wag his tail and jump into my arms as though he thought he'd lost me forever and I'd come back gives me the best feelings. It is moments like that that I know he loves me too.
Nubbins is getting old, and I know he'll die someday, so when he does die will all the good times we had be for naught because we can never have them again? Of course not!
The same can apply to a human to human relationship.
Relationships are like fires. Fires have to have fuel. All relationships are fueled with good times. The relationships that end poorly just stopped being fueled. So should you never have started the fire in the first place? Of course not!
Even if your fire is extinguished by no fault of your own, I'd argue it is still better to have felt the warmth of a fire then to have been cold forever.
I don't think any amount of bad experiences in a relationship could make up for the lessons learned in actually having the relationship.
So I guess in my mind Tennyson is right:
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Than never to have loved at all.
5 comments:
My solution to ease the pain of Nubbins death is to buy another dog now so that when he dies we can cuddle up with 'Pugsly' (becuase we will name our new dog Pugsly) and think about how much we loved Nubbins and it will be just a little more bearable...
tacy, i agree with and you tennyson. even if the fire goes out (as you so eloquently put it) the time you have in the warmth is totally worth it.
I agree as well. I also agree with Katy, lets get another dog and we will actually teach him to not bark and be annoying...
Totally agreed. If we don't love someone, how will we grow from the experiences? Although it really sucks to loose someone you love or loved, it's the things you learned from that relationship that truly matter.
I think another dog is a great idea. It really softened the blow to have Bentley when our Andy died after 14 years. We had Bentley for over a year by then so it didn't feel like such a betrayal. I love reading you Tacy. You have amazing insight.
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