The Costliness of Caring

I feel things too deeply for my own emotional well-being. I'm the type of person who can be impacted by a song so deeply that the feeling will remain with me for days. I'm the type of person who, once attached, never lets go. Too often, this causes me a deeper pain than it ever gave me pleasure. The world is full of things that separate people, whether it be circumstances, other people, or the most tragic: death. A part of me has always thought that it is the goodbyes that were the result of choices that were the most painful, for the self-evident reason that these were the ones that could have been prevented. Even the goodbyes that are necessary are painful. If I could somehow manage to become stoic or apathetic, it would be far less painful for me. Yet this coldness of heart would turn me into someone resembling an ice sculpture - whole and enchanting, but utterly unattached and unapproachable. So the tragic truth is that we must choose to either suffer the pain of caring or suffer the absence of any emotion and attachment whatsoever. There may be personal disputes over which of these is worse. Personally, I have often tried the latter method - to go through life without growing attached or caring. The result is inevitably a emptiness that echoes in the resultant darkness of the mind. So I am left with the only other alternative - to love, to be broken, to heal, and move on, in the hope that one day, I will find someone who I can love without the pain of saying goodbye.

This is my choice, to live with the pain. Being cautious in who I grow attached to, but not closing myself off to it. Time only will tell how this long road will end. Regardless, I can hope that it will mold me into someone greater than I am, the purer for having been refined in fire.