Questions About Love

Why is it so painful to love others? What is it about love that is so connected to pain? Is it even possible to truly experience love without having endured the hopelessness of grief? How can one think to sacrifice for the beloved, to willingly submit even to heartrending agony, unless one has already encountered and overcome considerable pain? To say or think that one will die without the beloved is simply proof of the selfish nature of one's love. Better to say that one's love is such that he will always seek the good of the beloved, even if such action results in her scorn and refusal of him. How can one knowingly do that which may result in the loss of the one for whom it is done? How utterly contrary to all things, to put the good of the beloved before even passion, before even desire for the beloved. Why is it so painful to love others? Why does it hurt so deeply? Is there ever a time when the pain ceases entirely? When it is no longer even a throbbing memory? God, I feel so useless. I feel as though I fail again and again in my friendships. And I wonder whether all my efforts have any meaning in the end. I hear people tell me of times when I comforted or cared for them, but those times are so often such vague recollections to me. To me, who remembers everything, every little detail... But I can barely recall something that, to someone else, meant everything. I feel as though I am a failure in my friendships. I do not know how to be a good friend, because part of me cannot bring myself to feel any of the things I've been avoiding, and how can I be a good friend if I refuse to feel? How selfish of me, how completely selfish. I wish I could be ignorant of my own selfishness... but it is so glaringly apparent to me. I cannot escape from its reality. But neither can I escape from my own inadequacy as a friend. I attempt to navigate this seemingly endless labyrinth with nothing more than guesswork and speculation, but I receive, at every turn, another shock, and they are no longer reliable indicators of success or failure. I am so tired. When is perseverance no longer a virtue? When does it become honorable to stop trying at all? Where is there rest for people who feel too much, even in feeling nothing? I run as far as I possibly can, but I am relentlessly pursued by my own desire to care for and protect and love. The infection that courses through my body cannot be purged without killing me. "Love is nature's way of giving a reason to be living," so then why does it sometimes feel as though living is simply an extravagantly excruciating form of death? What happens when one's best is simply not good enough?