Love, loss, evanescence, and beauty

There is a bargain that we enter into every time we meet someone new and decide to allow their lives to flow with ours, whether they become a friend, or an acquaintance, or a lover, or a spouse, or even just a person we admire from afar either out of fear of trying to get closer, or because they are too famous to get close to. Or it’s an involuntary relationship: a family member, a mother, a father, a grandparent, some more distant relation who nevertheless is featured in a way that wasn’t really by choice, even if they turn out to be great (and they don’t always, do they?).

The bargain is this: you get to have this person in the flow of your life, in whatever way they appear in that flow. But one of two things will inevitably happen. The first is that they will leave, and you will no longer have them. The second is that you will leave, and they will no longer have you. Whatever form the relationship may have taken, one of these two outcomes is inevitable; with the exception of partings that come with the death of one of these two people, both are inevitable.

When we are closely intertwined, as with a spouse or a lover or a friend, the loss can be devastating. When it’s someone a bit farther away, there’s a (hopefully fond) remembrance, and a feeling of loss, and perhaps some wonder about whether one should have spent more time with them.

But the loss itself, that’s inevitable. That’s coming. There is no stopping it.

And yet we don’t really live this truth, do we? Death comes as a surprise. Departure? Rejection? They come as a betrayal, or as a loss we know we have to accept for their sake, or that we want them to accept for our sake, but often it’s difficult to accept.

Sometimes the parting comes without being noticed in the moment. Later on, we think “wow, I haven’t seen Jo in a long time, I wonder how she’s doing?” If Jo is still around, and if it’s wanted, somethings this results in reaching out, and a new beginning. Sometimes the reaching out is more of a fond remembrance—perhaps contact is made, and briefly enjoyed, but nothing more comes of it than that.

There’s a beautiful purity in these contacts. The loss has already been accepted, perhaps without even being noticed. The person is still there, still available to be appreciated, but the circumstances that brought us together are no longer there, and so when we reach out, there is contact, but it doesn’t stick. The contact is enjoyed, the relationship fondly remembered, and then like two ships passing in the night we move on.

What if we could have this kind of relationship with everyone in our lives? What would that be like? To fully accept the temporary nature of the relationship. To live as if each time we see each other could be our last? How would our behavior toward this loved one, this friend, this acquaintance, this familiar barista, this annoyance, this enemy, how would it change?