A High Price and Worth It

I enjoy scrolling through Instagram for funnies to share with my people. I want to bring humor and levity–life is heavy and hard, bringing laughter and lightness makes me feel good. Sometimes while I’m there, though, I get little nuggets of wisdom and this one from author Ali Smith really struck me: “When you have love in the equation, you also have death in the equation. The love story is always about the threat and promise of loss.”

“The promise of loss” stood out the most. Every relationship has loss for one reason or another. It’s broken off. The people grow and change and the relationship that was is no longer (maybe it’s a new one). Or somebody dies. For every single relationship, the loss is built in. So then why do we do it? Why do we love? Why do we build relationships with people? Because it’s worth it.

I watched my husband’s life slip through my fingers like sand and I have never known a pain more excruciating. I couldn’t fix it and I couldn’t heal him. Once he was gone I had to piece some version of a life without him which was antithetical to every choice I had made for the fourteen years prior. And I would choose him all over again knowing what was coming because we were worth it. The life we built was filled with joy, laughter, amazing meals shared with friends, travel, play, delight, curiosity, hard work, anger, frustration, tears, passion, and a few cats.

Knowing that loss is built in, I ask myself if I would be open to loving like that again. My answer is yes. It may be a high price, but it’s worth it. Life with love is so much richer than a life without it.