it is to love enough

As some of you may know about 5 years ago I was in a car accident. I could have been hurt much worse than I was, I like to say my guardian angel was very flat that day as he stepped between me and the cement mixer. Like any person who comes face to face with their mortality I look at life differently than I did before.

In the priest's homily a couple of weeks ago he was talking about giving last rites to the elderly and how many of them share their regrets with him. He said most of the time their regrets are not that they didn't live enough, see enough or become enough, but that they didn't love enough, love more. He also stated that he believed when we die God will ask us if we became all that he intended for us. If God is love than he wants us to be love. So in theory if God asks us if we strove to become who he intended us to be wouldn't that in essence be this question, did you love like I did?

Since our creation we have believed in love. Adam walking in the garden with God himself was lonely and so God created Eve to complete his creation. Plato said that we were created with 4 legs, 4 arms and two faces and Zeus was afraid of our strength so he split us in half sending us into a constant search to complete ourselves. The Greeks also said that love was invented by the gods purely for their entertainment. For how much we know, how much we have learned there is still so much the human race doesn't know about love, and we are constantly searching. Shakespeare, Aristotle, fairy tales, music, cinema, literature, Freud, Jung have all made stabs at what love is, how we fall in love, why we fall in love with who we do, what makes marriage work, why marriages fall apart. Watching TV and movies romances always work out, why? Because the characters already know the ending, of course they are going to keep talking after she just offended him they are supposed to end up together so they will keep at it, their lines are scripted to match the other persons psyche and personality. But in real life we mess up, well at least I do. We react from our own perception and view points rather than the others. It is only natural we are all at the center of our own reality. But often in what we say, how we feel or how we act/react we hurt the other person, push them away or ruin something that could be good. Our lives aren't scripted out in advance our characters are not matched to each other. In my little shop I watch people, its a relatively small group of people in the grand scheme of the world but they are an interesting bunch let me tell you. Over the years I have watched them fall in love, get their hearts broken, get married, have children, get divorced. The only thing I think I have learned from all my watching is that there are as many types of relationships as there are people. Each one of them falls in love with different qualities than I would, each one of them breaks up over issues that I might not necessarily see to be a problem. I am rather ignorant on romantic love as far as personal experience goes. I'm still learning but I have a sneaky suspicion that I will never stop learning about love.

I do however know a bit about platonic love. Plato stated that it is the purest form of love that love between the same sex was perfect because there was no physical hang up, what I like to call the "when harry met sally" issue. My girlfriends have taught me much about love, forgiveness, understanding, patience, trust, hurt. Without their friendships I would not be the same person.

My family also has taught me a lot about love. What it means to stick through the hard times, learn from each other, how to love through change. Without their constant love and support I would not be able to show love and support to anyone else.

At the end of the day I guess the question I have for myself is; do I love enough? Do I risk enough for love? Will I live my life without the regret of not loving enough?