Just to Love

[david]

The greatest thing you'll ever learn
is just to love
and be loved in return.

– Nature Boy, 1948
Eden Ahbez





This side of the womb, I've discovered it hard to find a place that is absolutely warm and safe, a place that can make me happy and content regardless of what may be happening in the world.

While in the womb, and before I was aware of a world filled with other people and many things, it was constantly 98.6 degrees in the shade and I was always in the shade.

The sound and fury outside rarely penetrated soft, protective layers of mother that surrounded and enfolded me– and even when they did, they were merely muffled murmurs offering few clues to the chaos and danger without.

Time didn't exist. After all, life's clock starts at birth; so I wasn't even zero yet. I was oblivious to appointments, deadlines, duties and responsibilities.

Of course that all changed after I was born. My eyes opened to a world much larger than I could have imagined in the happy confines from whence I came.

Sights and sounds attacked from every quarter, each mysterious and new to me. Feeding became a more deliberate and less constant part of my life; without the umbilical, I found it necessary to use my mouth to take in nourishment – and also to bring in oxygen which had not been required in its gaseous state before I emerged into the atmosphere.

Eventually, bad things happened – I discovered discomfort and was startled, frightened, hungry, cold, constrained and – perhaps worst of all – I was sometimes ignored.

Not knowing the rules, and unaware of what had happened, I manifested my desire to return to the womb by clinging to my mother and sometimes to my father and other caregivers.

Still innocent, I felt safe in the arms of one who loved me unconditionally and who made an unspoken but undeniable pledge to protect me from all danger and to provide for all my needs.

But one day, when I needed or wanted something, no one acted immediately to remedy the situation.

It happened several weeks, perhaps a few months after my birth, but eventually that day arrived and I came to the realization that no one would always protect me from all danger. And, perhaps most disturbing of all, I learned that my happiness wasn't the only and often wasn't even the top priority for another person – parent or otherwise.

Even my dear mother one day displayed irritation, impatience, dismay or disapproval and I began to suspect that even her unconditional love wasn't literally unconditional after all.

And thus, while still an infant, I began a long, lonely journey through the desert. I spent years waiting and hoping that some day I'd find a place that offered the same comfort, safety and security I enjoyed in the womb.

Like most people, I yearned for a refuge from life's storms. Don't we all dream of a land where troubles melt like lemon drops?

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high?

I grew older in this context of fear and of yearning. I became a toddler and a pre-schooler, then a little kid and finally an adolescent.

Confused by changes taking place in my body, I discovered new yearnings – not for safety and comfort, but rather for danger and excitement.

Having abandoned all hope of returning to my mother's womb, I become fascinated by the prospect of alternate womb-related activities.

And I explored and experimented and, hopefully, learned and grew. Like most people, I discovered romance and succumbed to the powers of attraction.

And over time (and I'm afraid it took me a lot of time) I finally found a new level of warmth and comfort ... in the arms of one whom I loved and who loved me in return.

Even though I was aware that life is short and often peppered with tragedy and sorrow and that all that I loved might be taken from me in the blink of an eye and that I was at the mercy of random events and evil influences, I was more happy than at any other time in my life.

In the womb, ignorance was bliss. It seemed that the world was all good and all safe and all nurturing. And I was happy in that state of not knowing. It was a warm and comfortable place.

But as a grown man I discovered a better place, a place that could be found anywhere in this dangerous world – anywhere, as long as I could be with the one I loved.

I learned and was thrilled by the knowledge that, in the eyes of my soulmate, I was the most important person in the whole world and the most wonderful.

And I believed that I was wonderful. How else could I be worthy of her love?
From time to time, in recent years, I've questioned the validity of the saying, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Today, I am certain that it is absolutely true.

Just as I pity anyone who wishes never to have been born, I likewise feel sorry for those who have never loved and been loved in return.

I envy those who still have and hold their loved ones; but I realize that I envy them only because I have been similarly blessed in my own life.

To have known love, to have been in love and to have been loved in return creates a benefit – I call it “joy” – that doesn't end when bad things happen.
And that, I believe, happens to be “the greatest thing I'll ever learn...”