What We Do for Love

Maybe we raise children, pursue romantic entanglements, join churches or movements and form friendships because we never feel as alive or as fully realized as when we love. We create reasons for love that are incompatible with the facts in order to unharness this mad impulse to love. "Isn't she perfect!" we say of the woman who so obviously isn't. "Isn't he adorable!" we say of the toddler who will begin to drive us crazy in one, two, three .... seconds.

We fabricate stories in order to justify what feels most alive for us, this feeling of love. And thank goodness that for all of the fatigue and exasperation of raising children, it is one of the most unvarnished and raw expressions of love a person will experience. Thank goodness because it makes us happily enter into something that puts so many demands on us. The heart needs love in the same way that the brain needs sleep and whatever self-delusion or sacrifice it takes, we will pay that price because whatever the price it is cheap compared to its value.