Let's talk about love and pain. Everywhere I go the young generation speaks openly to me about how "Love is Pain" and about how being "in love” is strangely connected to experiencing or going through some kind of hurt. Geez! Where do our children get this stuff? There was even a song out where one of the lyrics stated undoubtedly that love IS pain. What unspoken communication is our new generation ingesting? How do they perceive people in terms of how we connect or disconnect interpersonally? Which lyrics do they identify with as "legit" when belted out by rappers? Is it safe to assume that they admire these artists to the extent that the artist's lyrical verses are deemed accurate and proper in the minds of the youthful ones of the world? Is it safe to assume that just because a rapper says-it-in-song that his messages are true?

Unless loving someone changed so drastically since I was in love it remains my understanding that a (hale and hearty) LOVE and (plain ole) PAIN have not changed their stripes and are not hand-in-hand. Since when was love supposed to hurt? How can a love be a healthy L-O-V-E if it causes you harm and distress? Well ya know what? I just don't get it. Maybe I'm growing old too quickly and I don't remember seeing the memo when it was circulated that said this is so or something.

This younger generation I just don't know about sometimes. What're we putting in their food? And I'm talking about from the late teens to the mid-twenties. Most of these people haven't even lived enough to experience PAIN in its most devastating capacity or LOVE in its strongest state for that matter. Hell I'm still waiting to experience a love in its strongest state myself and I'm practically as old as dirt!! (Well I feel as old as dirt sometimes). And I'm talking about MOST youngins NOT all of em so please don't go running to your computer to draft a nasty e-mail to me.

Want to know what pain is? Pain is caring about someone until it makes YOU sick to the point of NOT being able to eat or sleep because you are forced to watch them as they make terrible life mistakes that you KNOW will eventually ruin his/her life or cause THEM unnecessary problems in the future. Pain is when you KNOW YOUR LOVED ONE is going through an unbearable or hurtful experience and YOU emotionally absorb some of THEIR agony because of the love YOU harbor for them. Pain is watching a loved one

die. Pain is loving a person inside and out knowing if the necessity presented itself, you WOULD cut off your right arm and part of your left if it meant saving their life. (Only to come to the realization that this person continuously and relentlessly treats YOU like the scum that's glued to a piece of worm infested elephant poop that rests on the bottom of YOUR shoe!) How rude is THAT awakening?

Pain is when for YEARS you tell a loved one that all you want is a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T and all you get is heartache until YOUR heart aches and stiffens to the point of the issue of R-E-S-P-E-C-T being evaporated from your list of wants and needs entirely.

Love is hearing your lover's soothing voice as your eyes drink only them when you are in their presence. Your vision becomes nothing less than tunneled and you care less about the world around you. Love is watching your sweetheart while he or she sleeps knowing that you want to awaken them for this or for that, but you opt not to because you know that they are tired and really need to be "left alone” in restful slumber. Love is when the thought of your "baby-boo” continues to make your heart go pitter-patter as you remember that you're going to celebrate your 25th wedding anniversary with them tomorrow evening. Love is peaceful, serene and kind. Love is NOT pain. The PAIN of LOVE is never experiencing amour in its most robust state. The pain of love is living your life, dying and NEVER experiencing how wonderful a "good” relationship can be.

You know my list can go on and on but I believe the real PAIN of LOVE is not knowing the difference. So please don't tell ME that love is pain. Just don't tell me that. Just don't!!! DON'T!!

(c) 2006 by C. V. Harris. All rights reserved.

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