Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

We human beings on this planet are all connected by an invisible thread. When we make an actual connection with one another, the thread becomes visible and tangible. When this happens, there should be a pop up box like on your computer that says “Enter at your own risk. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”.  Why? Because these connections are risky. Sometimes they can turn out to be one of the best experiences of your life; other times?...not so much.

You only fall in love for the first time once. It never happens that way again. And that love, whether consciously or unconsciously, is used as a measuring stick to measure all loves that follow. Whether it is one year or thirty two and half years, it is what we measure our love for another by. You can come pretty close to that first love, but it is never the same.

Sometimes it is better to have just the memory of that first love but in the age of the internet, we can now go back and have a look. Some of us are pleasantly surprised at how well our first loves have done. We can feel good about ourselves because of that because we can justify them playing such an important role in our lives. We can say to ourselves “I always knew he/she was a great person”.  Our disappointment at it not working out with them turns to pride at having been the first to love them and see their goodness.

That being said, some of us are very unpleasantly surprised at what monsters our first loves have become. This can be very disconcerting because we cannot justify them playing such an important role in our lives. Our original disappointment turns into a bitter pill that must be swallowed in order to move on in our lives. We question ourselves. Were they a monster back then or did something happen to them in the course of their life to make them this way? Was I wrong for loving them? Is there something I could have done to not love them? We then grieve. And we grieve because it is a death of sorts; the end of our innocence; the end of a dream.

But when the grieving is done, at the end of the day, it is what it is. Some people turn out good, some people turn out to be monsters and you have no way of seeing which way they are going to go when you are young and blind. You feel something in your heart, something you’ve never felt before and it takes over and follows you throughout your life. It isn’t something you have control over, it just is. It is extremely loud in your brain and incredibly close to your heart but it is better to have that disappointment, better to have even the bitter pill because without it, you have nothing; no feelings; dead on the inside. It is always better to have something rather than nothing because it means you’re alive.