Yes, but I think you may find that there are always multiple aspects to love as well. In addition to the immediate hungers and enjoyments and pains, there are also the growth and change within yourself, which you retain, even if the subject/object of your affection leaves or even if they betray you.

growth... change... Igor would becoming even more guarded and sceptical be considered as growth as well? this is way realistic and mature especially as love is just a feeling and a choice one could always change

All of your experiences make you the person that you are today. The bad and the good. You gain wisdom from the experiences you learn from bad and good ones.
A little self-reflection of both the good and the bad in love can give you self-clarity.
Instead of pining over a loss when you hear a song, use those feelings (which you direct) to let the song empower you.
Its easier to just be content then to try to force any emotion to remain past its natural duration.

I like the Blues.
Specifically I like guitar blues. If there is a sax or harmonica in it all the better.
One song that I just love is Alvin Lee's The Bluest Blues.
I just now looked up the lyrics to it. Love the song but had no idea what he was singing.

The Blues Blues ~ Alvin Lee (from 10 Years After)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDzyama_wCI

I dunno skeptical. I have a weird way of looking at life.

If I get 10 years of good service from my car , and it gets wrecked in an accident because of my carelessness or someone else, I would probably spend several months "cussing " myself and the other person for the damage done.

But after bitching and complaining to anyone kind enough to tolerate me,.Im gonna be thanking my lucky stars that I came out of the crash in one piece ,and grateful for the 10 years of service I got from that car

And on a more personal note, I have a very close friend that I love to pieces.

He has been undergoing some emotional changes in his life and has started dismissing people for reasons that dont seem justifiable to me.

I live with the awareness that I might be next on his chopping board (although he has given no such indication.)

But the weird thing is that Ive already told myself that if he does, after mourning the loss and working through the hurt, Im going to forever appreciate and celebrate his 6 years of faithful friendship to me.

People disappear.

Feelings disappear.

But it wont change my gratitude for the best of what love and life has offered me,

Do you think it might help a bit if you started thinking of love/relationships as a journey of exhilaration and potholes mixed in one , instead of viewing it as a happy ending?

That way, if you dont reach your intended destination of forever, you can still look back at the highlights of the journey , and smile :)


( But only after you cuss out the potholes , bumps , eratic traffic lights and bad drivers on the road Thats VERY IMPORTANT ;)

thanks peggy i need all the luck i can get. the roads here are such as you described them and it would take a miracle to pass by a decent one at the least

It would depend (in my opinion at least) on the details of HOW you become "more guarded and skeptical."

Simple examples: if your version of "skeptical" is (as it is for some) "to assume that everyone is a lying selfish jerk," then that would NOT be growth. It would be retreat, at best.

If your version of "more guarded" is to realize that people can say things and THINK they mean them, but be wrong, and therefore you should not risk your life and hopes on words alone, then I would say that IS growth.

I'm not really sure that I would agree that "love is a choice," exactly. Perhaps that what you DO about your emotions is a choice. The times I've loved someone and suffered for it, I have WISHED that I could just say "hmmm. Guess I'll stop caring. That should square things up." But I never managed it. I had to find a different way to deal with caring instead. Mostly, even after 63 years, I still find love itself to be a very challenging thing to pin down. Maybe it only exists at all when we don't, and focus on what we do about it instead, I don't know.

thank you Igor...i choose now to "grow" in a skeptical way . its in our experiences that we learn and just move on. being positive always helps but then anticipating the bad stuff helps too.