Love hurts

I don’t think that anyone would dispute the assertion that it is good to be loved. In fact, I don’t believe I am overstating the case when I submit that pretty much everything in life is, at some level, driven by our need to be loved and accepted. The love letter from that skinny, red-haired boy in Grade 1, who risked his reputation to steal your pencil box in order to spell your name correctly, is still remembered fondly decades later – not, I confess, because of the manifest charms of said red-haired boy but simply because it is wonderful to have been loved. (And, given my own complete lack of charms at that age, it was indeed wonderful to have inspired love in any boy, skinny and red-haired or otherwise!)

The fact is, we need to be loved. Studies have shown that newborn babies whose every physical need is met but who are deprived of love – with all that loving brings – fail to thrive and die. As adults, we may not die physically when we do not feel loved but something precious shrivels up inside and we become less. Dark deeds have been done in the name of this deep-seated desire to be loved.

Given all this, it strikes me as strange how generally reluctant we are to give love away – even to those whom we want to love us. Our love-receivers are all powered up and tuned in but when it comes to our love-transmitters – not so much.  Which creates something akin to an imbalance of trade and you don’t have to be an economist to know that trade deficits are not generally a good thing.  (There are, of course, people who selflessly show love to the unloving and unlovable but they usually enjoy a secure source of love, be it corporeal or incorporeal; it is, after all, very difficult to draw water from an empty well.)

So why is it that, knowing our own need to be loved, we still shy away from being loving? I think the answer goes deeper than mere selfishness and emotional indolence to the flipside of the coin of our hard-wired need for love: the drive for self-preservation. When we are loved, we are cocooned in a warm embrace. When we love, we choose to break open that cocoon and, in so doing, open ourselves to pain.

There is the potential for pain in the very act of loving, even when the object of your love does nothing to intentionally hurt you. When you love someone, your drive for self-preservation extends to encompass them and you want to protect them from harm. But we can no more control anyone else’s choices than we can the circumstances of life, which leaves us vulnerable to continual anxiety and, at times, agony.

So the old Nazareth hit nails it on the head: Love hurts.

I was reminded of this truth this morning while walking Sammy into school. Our path takes us past a delightful cottage coffee shop whose proprietor, in an innovative marketing strategy, has set up a mobile cappuccino-to-go stand on the street corner. So far, so good. The boom-box, set to a popular radio station with the volume dialled high, was not such a success with Sammy, who finds loud noises and strange people unnerving, to say the least. He, too, displayed innovative thought when he reached up and pulled my shirt over his head in an attempt to hide from the sensory onslaught as he stepped up his pace to escape. I resolutely returned the smiles we drew as we crossed the road and made our way into the safety of the school grounds, a curious ‘push-me-pull-you’ spectacle straight from the pages of Dr DooLittle. After all, they were (mostly) offered in sympathetic understanding. But I hurt for Sammy. Much as we love him, we won’t always be able to protect him from the circumstances of life or other people’s choices.

All we can do is love him - and hope that he will feel secure enough in our love to reach out beyond his fears and risk loving others.