“Up Against It, but all for it.”

 M,

We truly are up against it. The love poems and epic plays and declarations of eternal love do not prepare the human heart for the drudgery that is the daily life of love. In many ways, it begins to feel like decay. There is something missing in the great fountain that we expect it to be. We think of it as living and flowing water, but it slowly becomes this still thing. It has nowhere else to go but inside. And this is where the fun begins.

 

For many, the magic at the start is the only thing that matters. A trick is always an exciting thing to see. Yet, the real jewels lie in discovering what makes the trick work. The illusion does not work forever. It will add no wisdom to you. It will not make your mind or your heart richer. It is on the surface and will go no deeper. The beauty is in the pieces to be uncovered, the real human being that lies behind the façade of early love. It is a horror to discover that this person you met at the start will be the person you love in the end. It takes an adjustment. Then you read that sentence again: it is a delight and a joy that the person, not figment or imagination or aspirational agent, you met at the start will love you in the end. This is the final defeat of entropy. Something sure is here to stay. It is not inertia but grounding. It is not stillness but eternity. You are not up against it after all but all for it and this, forever.