All relationships end, and grief follows.
In our younger days, they usually end with someone deciding it’s not the perfect fit it seemed to be in early days. The grief from a breakup is overwhelming when one is not ready for it. I think one of the most important people in my life was my second girlfriend, simply because I saw that “my one and only” was in fact not the only woman who might become “my one,” and that my breakup was in fact not the end of the world that my shattered emotions pretended it was.
As we grow older, relationships are more likely to last “until death does us part.” Songs like “I’ll Never Find Another You” and “If You Can’t Be With the One You Love, Love the One You’re With” gain a new layer of meaning. By now, when the prospect of starting a new relationship appears, it comes with the clear knowledge that one or the other of you likely is destined to live through a now-familiar, too-familiar heartbreak.
Taking things to the next level is a courageous decision, a courageous risk. Still, better to have loved and lost than to never have known what love is — and so we step forward together.
