Thoughts In Late Autumn
The following quote was on the cover of the invitation to my wedding to my first husband:
I am my beloved's and
My beloved is mine.
From every human being
there rises a light that
reaches straight to heaven.
And when two souls that
are destined to be together
find each other, their
streams of light flow
together ... and a single
brighter light goes forth
from their united being.
Baal Shem Tov
It is now 22 years later ... a child lost, a divorce, much anger and sadness ... and I wonder how to justify to myself the thoughts I so blithely and naively put on that invitation.
Do you believe in a love that lasts for a time? Is it any less than a love that lasts forever? Does any love last forever, truly? Were those souls destined to be together and united ... for a while? Is there still value in that brighter light even though it did not last an eternity? Is it all illusion?
The love one feels in the spring of one's life is much different than the love felt in the autumn. If you are fortunate to still love in later life ... and many lose that ability along the way (or it is greatly weakened) ... the love is richer, deeper -- and leavened with the very knowledge that it will not -- nothing does -- last forever.
But does that make it worth less? Or more?
posted by mireille at 8:22 AM
9 Comments:
What a lovely and thoughtful post.
Love can last. But it is not the same as when it started. Young love is so very, very different from the love you feel for the same person 40 years later.
If you go on a wonderful vacation to paradise, enjoy yourself very much, then on the way home your car falls apart, you get lost, feel as if you will never see home again, does that negate the beautiful vacation?
The answer depends on the person giving it. One person would always remember the good times and laugh at the eventual outcome, and another person would focus on the bad trip home. Someone else would see the inbetween.
9:06 AM
wow, i don't think i have answers to those questions...yet (if ever)
i suppose i would be moving from spring to summer, if not fully ensconced in summer
and so far, i am enjoying love's metamorphosis (if that doesn't sound too corny)
can you check back with me in a decade (or two)?!
nice post, M
UC
x
2:41 PM
Wow. I'm in over my head here but that was a wonderful post.
3:40 PM
And I'm so sorry to hear you lost a child. It's amazing that you're you after that.
3:41 PM
This is my third pass by this post, I long to add something worthwhile and keenly feel my complete inability to do so.
Married for 15 years here, and the love we have today is not what we had 15 years ago, or two years ago.
I do believe love can last, but perhaps I merely choose to believe that. As for love of a shorter life span, I have to believe that it is worth some thing. Or that it can be, if we choose to allow that.
Finding love again, although it can never be the same as an early form for the person that you are is different, is worth more. You have a wider experience, a richer palate, and hard won knowedge.
All love is worthwhile, and love between survivors is priceless.
(Ariella's AF)
4:45 PM
I think all love is worthwhile. I like the philosophical idea - was it John Stuart Mill? - that the world is the sum of people's happiness or unhappiness, and so whatever you do to add to the happiness total is a good thing.
On that idea, I value human kindness very highly too. Above intelligence, hard work, beauty - everything,
5:58 PM
This thought reminds me of so many things, including autumn in Hunza.
4:23 AM
Dearest M. You always ask the hard questions!
I believe that our ability to love and the dimensions of our ability, grow and change as we do. It doesn't make that previous love any less worthy, just different. The key is to continually delve into oneself, to learn to love yourself and in turn, free up your unique gifts to to make the world a better place. The deeper I go into self knowledge, the deeper is my ability to love inward and outward.
xoxo
L
8:03 AM
I'm way late to this beautiful post, but feel compelled to respond anyway.
I do believe that love that lasts for a time is just as beautiful and valuable as love that lasts for a longer time. Love can and does last - hopefully forever, but it changes over time so that the love you once had is not the love you now have, even if the partner is the same.
And I believe there are loves that last forever even when the union created with the love does not last very long at all. The definition of love is so wide and varied and means so many different things in so many different situations...I know you speak of the love between partners. I can tell you that when my brother in law's mother died recently, her ex-husband (30 years ex) was there by her side. "I never stopped loving you" he said, and he said it wituout the pain of lost love because even though they could not be a married couple, they did manage to create a friendship that lasted - forever.
Here's the quote from my wedding invitation (funny we both had quotes, but not surprising):
"This is the true measure of love: When we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us." Goethe, no less. Impressed? :D
1:00 PM
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