Another shot at Love

How does one approach Love? Can one take a rational approach and perhaps love incrementally; dipping first a toe, then a foot before slowly wading in. Or does one dive right in, loving on the onset with one's whole heart? How many times though can one bounce back from getting one's heart broken. How can one love with one's best time after time without either drowning in sorrow or turning cynically jaded?

I remember writing once about how adolescent relationships are akin to a kid playing in a sandbox. It's better, I postulated, for one to experiment with relationships when one is young as the intensity of love in our younger days should be lesser and the negative impacts of a broken heart less serious. It's hard for me to convincingly advocate this point of view now as I no longer fully believe in it.

Although it might be true that the extents as to how a broken heart will pragmatically affect a youth's life is much lesser as compared to someone who's already trying to establish a career, it's no reason for one to be flippant and careless about entering relationships. We start out with this innocent and almost infinite capacity for love. When we love, the person becomes the center of our universe and everything revolves around the person. The object of our affection is on our mind when we awake, and before we sleep we smile thinking of the person. Now I believe, that this innocent approach on love has to be protected.

Bouncing back after a failed relationship is never easy. And somehow it almost seems like one never full recovers. It becomes a little more difficult to love the next time, and the next fall a little harder.

I'm turning 25 this year. The mere thought of it sends a shiver down my spine. A friend's getting married this year. Another successfully balloted for a flat and would have to get married in 2 years or so. We're of the same age and yet in vastly different phases of love.

I had a shot at love, and I blew it completely for a lifestyle utterly inane. Another shot at love and I would have to be nothing short of insane to let something even remotely similar happen.