This week's prompt: loving more
For decades, my parents have said they wouldn't get new dogs or cats when the ones they had died. Their last dog died over ten years ago, their last cat, five. Death was too hard, they said. The pain was too much. Despite missing the presence of beasties in their home, they've remained pet-free.
Before Matt died, I thought this was ridiculous. Why deny yourself the deep joy and pleasure you get from your pets just to spare yourself their death? I wonder if I still think that way.
Generally on my mind this week - loving more. Not just pets, and not even just other humans. I mean, love. Loving anything. Loving the world, the oceans, the stars - I mean, that's kind of easy, because they aren't likely to die in our lifetimes. But living here, living here still, choosing love of any kind means choosing grief or pain, sooner or later. Do we practice the harm reduction model of love, shrinking down the sphere of acceptable love in order to minimize future pain, or do we cast open the doors of our hearts in a sort of wild, do what you will to me, abandon?
No right choice there, certainly. And maybe we don't have a choice. Maybe, as long as we are alive, this world will call us to love, give us opportunities to open our hearts to joy and beauty, even knowing what we know about death and loss. Do we love more, knowing the risk? Or do we make smaller, safer choices that diminish the chance of grief by shrinking the experience of love?
For this week, use a line from the following passage as your jumping off point, or take a phrase from what I've written above.
“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones