Is Love Worth it?

The old adage goes that it’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. That it’s better to know the highs of love and to have to endure the lows of losing said love, than to have never experienced it. In my most humble opinion, this is complete, total, bull shit. I would have to say that those who haven’t ever had their hearts pricked by Cupid’s darts definitely hold an advantage over those of us who have. I think that of all the diverse pains I’ve had to endure—from appendicitis, to collateral ligament micro-tears, to pneumonia—the pain of losing someone you love is most definitely the worst. Two years later, and the pain still isn’t all the way gone. I feel it every time that I see a happy couple holding hands. I feel it every time that I see a couple with a new baby. I hate engagement photos; I hate the smiling, happy girls, with the bright flashing rings on their hands. They just serve to remind me of the one who I used to make smile. I used to love watching her eyes flash. I loved playing with her son. I loved hearing her tell me she loved me. I really wonder now if she ever actually did. My heart likes to tell me that she did, but I don’t think my head would let me believe it. I don’t think if she ever loved me she would have ended things like she did; without ever really giving me a reason, without giving the ring back. She kept the ring and she kept my heart, or the best part of it. There’s been a hole inside that I’ve been trying in vain to fill with many different things. I’ve tried to fill it with everything, except for filling it with myself. My father told me recently that we never truly get over those that we love; we just learn to live without them. I believe that, yet I hope that that’s not always true. I don’t want to spend my life with this hole, loving her for loving me and hating her for leaving me. That just feeds the pain. You can’t close the hole and keep it open at the same time. So what I’ve tried to do is close the gap by loving myself. It’s been a long, hard road, and I wonder if I’m brave for trying to move on, or a coward for being so affected by this for so long. Something dies inside you when you love deeply, and then that love is lost. I envy the man who’s never felt this type of love. I think he’s better off. I don’t know if or when I’ll let myself love someone again. I don’t think that it’s worth it. But who knows, I could be wrong. But I doubt it.