The Pale White Wings of a Friggin' Bird

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the danger of love is Hell.

Thank you C.S. Lewis.

To give you a concrete example of what I think vulnerability in love happens to entail, I'll tell the following "love" story.

Once upon a time I had a boyfriend named Don. I also had a favorite song named "Hurricane Song". I loved them both equally. (Caveat: I originally loved "Hurricane Song" more, but it was never meant to last. You'll find this song in the upper right hand corner.) Anyway, one day, I was driving in the car with Don when the song came on. And I started to sing along,

"I caught the sound of a distant word
On the pale white wings of a friggin' bird."

Sadly, I didn't get any further than that. I was interrupted with, "Did you just say 'friggin' bird?" followed by spouts of laughter. My thoughts were as follows, "Laugh it up sweetheart, you are SO sleeping on the figurative couch tonight!" but what I really said was, "Yeah." To which he replied, "It's frigate bird! Not friggin' Bird!" Followed by more evil laughter.

Turns out they really do say frigate bird.

Thank you Virginia Coalition.

But frigate birds don't have pale white wings. Do they. No.*
*(I hope you're following my outbursts of raging sarcasm into the cracks of my little broken heart, because indeed, that is from which they stem.)

So what do frigate birds have to do with love? Well..the reason (however silly) I fell in love with "Hurricane Song", was because of the friggin' bird. When it suddenly became frigate bird, I was upset. Even a little brokenhearted. Oh yes. I still sing it my way. I always will. But will it ever give me as much happiness as it used to? I submit that it will not.

Thank you Don.

So...even though we had to wade through the sarcasm to get here, this is what I know of love:

Unless we're open to opportunities for growth inherent in not only love, but every association in life, we unconsciously allow our hearts to remain dormant. Closed. Unable to experience joy. We miss out on the moments that shape us into who we're intended to become.

On the other hand, when we get to a point where we see the value in opening up our hearts, and sing at the top of our lungs, we might just find that we've come to a place outside the fear of tragedy. A place where our circumstances do not determine our choices, and our past no longer dictates our future. Love can only disappear when we let our fear and uncertainty overtake it.

Sure, it might happen that one minute you're singing your heart out, and the next you're having to pick up its pieces. But isn't it beautiful? When its all said and done we come away with different colored shards of experience that, when viewed through the right lens, give us a kaleidoscope of possibilities.