Love Is an Open Wound

My family just told me this past weekend that one of my favorite beings - our cat, Sidney - has been missing for two weeks. She is either dead, foraging to survive or thriving in someone else's care. She is a gorgeous cat - a ten-year-old himalayan with long, white fur and grey tips - and she's incredibly friendly and sweet! It's highly possible that someone picked her up and took her home. Hopefully she is ok.

However, it is also possible that Sidney has passed. This possibility is, of course, the hardest to swallow. I bawled and cried and paced and panicked and had trouble breathing and cried and cried over this possibility. Then, after a few days of thinking on it, I realized that it is more likely that she is ok since my brothers have been searching all over for her and no one has found any evidence of her demise. She was too young and healthy to just die for no reason so there would be evidence if she was killed by some animal or some thing - a body, fur, blood, etc. After coming to that conclusion, I have been feeling somewhat more optimistic about her prospects. As soon as I get up to Portland, OR, where my family lives (they actually live about 20 miles southeast of Portland in a town called West Linn), I plan on implementing a huge search and rescue effort. I will not leave there after 5 days without putting in the best effort that I can possibly put in to find her. Because I love her.

I love Sidney, or Sidnerelli as I like to call her. Her disappearance and possible demise hurts so much - makes it hard to breath at times, even - because I love her so much. I was thinking about this fact about love - that when someone you love dies it hurts so much that it feels unbearable and I was feeling like I just can't do it anymore - deal with the pain of losing someone I love. I looked at my cats, Molly and Bates, who live with me and my little dog, Letia, and I couldn't even imagine what I'd be like if one of them had died or was even missing for as long as Sidney. It's not that I love them more than I love Sidney, but our lives are definitely more intertwined since I live with them.

In any case, I realized that despite the pact that I've made with my pets, it's highly likely that they will die before I do and thus, I will have to endure their deaths. That realization made me feel - for a moment at least - like I might have made a mistake falling in love with these beings, that I am now doomed to that pain whereas if I hadn't taken them into my life (or even allowed them to be born, as the case was for Molly and Sidney), I wouldn't be doomed to such pain. Then I reminded myself that of course I didn't make a mistake bringing these beings into my life, that they have brought me so much joy and love - how could I even consider not having them?

This brings me to the thesis of my post: love is an open wound. When you love someone, you are opening your heart to them and exposing yourself to certain grief. Of course, that's not all that love is - it is a wonderful joyous feeling and everlasting comfort and more than anything anyone can ever completely describe. But it is guaranteed to give pain because of its loss - either due to the love ending or due to the object of love leaving or dying. Unless you die first. But then your death will hurt the ones that love you. So there's no getting around it - the suffering will be there with or without you.

I also considered what I had thought previously - what if you never let yourself love anyone? Could you really avoid the pain and suffering associated with love in that case? I thought about this and came to the conclusion that no, there's no way around it - either you love and lose or you just lose and lose. There's no joy in never loving anyone or being loved by no one! I'm not even sure that's possible, but if it were I cannot imagine that it would be a pain,-suffering-and-grief-free existence. Therefore, it is preferable to endure love and loss, and, since love is an open wound, make sure to tend to it so it doesn't become infected.