Tragedy is Beautiful
My life is full of tragedy because it is full of beauty. Two people I love have recently been diagnosed with brain cancer. A girl who I think I might love just thinks of me as a fling.
My football team is in the Championship Game and last night was as beautiful as any night I have ever had before or will ever have again. I watched teenage boys that I love like little brothers cry like little girls. I hugged them, held their heads aginast my chest and I cried too. Tonight I see a girl who has moved away and is in town for just one day. She is full of life and excitement and she lights fireworks whenever we kiss.
I choose to love the beautiful people that come into my life. I risk tragedy equal to this love.
Is it worth the risk? What happens if my 2 friends pass away before their time? Will I ever be able to care about someone the same way again?
How can anyone live without bright, vibrant, deep, gut-wrenching love? As I look around I see things…a $3,000 tv, my laptop, my watch, my wallet…they may have some pawn value but all of these things leave me feeling dull. I wonder if I have trained myself to ignore meaningless things because I reject their perceived value as a product of rampant consumerism. I wonder if I’m numb to meaningless things and shallow people because in them I risk nothing, not love nor life nor tragic end.
Does everyone fall in love as fast and as easily as I do? An emotional and contemplative life is one frought with depression, manic highs and lulls between tragic hurricanes and beautiful sunsets that hold your breath until they fade. I am in love with two girls. Last week I might have said that it was four. I feel sometimes like a little kid being dragged by his mother on one of those doggie straps around the mall; dragged around life by crushes on beautiful things. Like a racoon to a shiny object, I’m drawn in not knowing why, just knowing that I must follow and that I must have it and have it now.
I venture tonight into the city without a plan. I plunge into the deep not knowing whether I’ll come back with treasure in my hands or drown with nobody to make my save.
Superficial beauty bores me, it makes me cringe. People who live their lives running from meaning and truth by distorting their faces and hiding their skeletons aren’t worth my time. They are making the decision to be shallow. If they never risk tragedy they will never be beautiful. Like toads hopping along the surface, killing flies with their tongues; they never risk falling in the pond. The great, sad conversations only happen between characters with history and depth.
Shakespeare, the master of Love and Tragedy wrote in Sonnet 116:
...love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove,
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
...With his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
To the edge of doom I will not only bear out the tumultuous sea that is ahead for me and those I love but I will let tragedy wash me with the blood of life; with my head down I will pay my penance to beauty and walk the only true path to a genuine life.
Tragedy is Beautiful,
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Brian,
I’m so sorry to hear about the women you love.
However I believe that you will learn to love again if they die before their time. I fall in love quickly too and for that I get hurt a lot but it’s a risk you take every time you fall in love.
You are an amazing guy!!!! Any girl would be soooo lucky to have to you in their life.
All the best to you!!
Vanessa
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Every time I get hurt I resolve to protect myself from harm the next time I dare to be vulnerable with someone new.
You are right though, if we don’t risk loss then we can’t have love.
Thank you Vanessa
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GOSH! Words to tell you how much I love you fail me in the face of such eloquence. I think that the most cherished moments in a lifetime are the ones spent in realization of one’s own gratitude for all that we are given, all that we might still gain, and all that we might still become. It takes an immensely special soul to realize that triumph and tragedy keep such close company, and do so that we may always be reminded that one is most often the cost of the other. Best wishes in your journeys, friend.
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Matt! You know how big a fan I am of yours. Don’t start with me!
Thank you for your words. I know we are on the same page, in many ways, on how we view the world. I know we both value those who give themselves and with character. I have on occasion seen you chase something shiny and I have on occasion received a chiding from you for doing the same. I envy your struggle between impulse and intellect; I too wish for such sophistication and depth.
Love you pal!
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If you could e-mail me with a few suggestions on just how you made your blog look this excellent, I would be grateful.
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Simply load WordPress, choose a theme, load some widgets and voila!
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we are a long way from kansas
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I just added your blog site to my blogroll, I pray you would give some thought to doing the same.
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When I click through to your blog it opens a godaddy site asking me if I want to buy the domain. Are you sure you entered it correctly?
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Really nice post,thank you
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It is your turn to come up with that concept that clarifies dilemmas with so well.
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I have had several friends lose spouses and parents over the holidays and the beauty is what is helping them survive their tragedy. and every single one of them would say it was worth it. to love that deeply. it is a gift.
I see that this is an older post so maybe you have seen some things get better and some things get worse by now. I hope mostly better.
thank you for sharing this.
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I’m sorry for your friends’ losses. I am grateful though that they were enriched by the gift of life they shared.
Things have gotten better and I am thankful for this. Both of my friends are holding on and braving their illnesses with great courage, positivity and poise.
Thank you for sharing back 😉