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Mike Hendricks

Mike at Night

Mike Hendricks recently retires as social science, criminal justice instructor at McCook Community College.

Opinion

One is the loneliest number

Friday, September 2, 2011

Something most of us discover eventually is that it's hard to go through the world alone. There are all kinds of situations and circumstances where we need other people for love, support, compassion, understanding, sympathy and a shared walk through this unpredictable world we live in. We're happiest when we have someone to share the good times as well as the bad times with.

A lot of people are single and they say, at least to other people, that they're happy they are because it uncomplicates their lives.

They're able to do what they want to do when they want to do it without needing anybody else's permission or participation. That argument has some merit I suppose but a lot of demerits too, especially if they're single because someone has left them behind.

It's heartbreaking to have love snatched away from you. One day you're the king of the world because you know you have someone by your side who will love you forever and the next day they're gone and you face the world alone. One day you have a human being to snuggle up with that shares your world with you and the next day there's nothing there but an empty pillow.

We make all kinds of promises to each other we don't know if we can keep or not. We use words like forever and eternity and til the day I die and then strangle and kill those words by saying we meant them when we said them but we don't mean them anymore.

That's why being alone is so painful to some. If you've never been totally and completely in love with someone, maybe it's not so bad to be alone because you don't know what you're missing.

But when you've planned out your whole life with someone else in it and then they're not anymore, it's a devastating proposition.

When we talk about love and relationships in the classes I teach, I tell my students the most dangerous thing about being in love is that we can't make somebody else love us and even when they say they say they do, we can never really be sure that they do. Anybody can say anything and some are a lot better at lying than others. Some students suggest that the way we know if someone really loves us or not is if their actions support their words. But that doesn't always work either. Sometimes their actions support their words right up until the moment they leave us.

And even when we understand why people make the decisions they make because of their upbringing and the life they've lived up until now, that doesn't make it any easier to take when we're forsaken. And it doesn't make the love we have for them go away.

So they embark on a new life or go back to an old one and we're left holding the bag, feeling much less confident of our place in the world because the love of our life chose someone else over us; someone we know in our hearts can never give them anything close to the peace, contentment, excitement and happiness we could have.

And if that happens to you, be prepared for your well-meaning friends who will tell you to forget about that person and get on with your life. That advice rings hollow, even when it's well meant, because they don't know the pain you're feeling inside when you've lost your soulmate, your lover, your confidant and your best friend.

You can't go out and find a new love when you're still in love with the old one.

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  • Love is a living extension of our lives. We are not meant to be alone in this world. Even the Bible instructs us a mate, of the opposite sex, has been created for us. The Bible even instructs us how to keep love alive. Respect and honor.

    Love requires room to breath. I'm sure many of us have been in smothering relationships. You cannot breath, let alone eat or even think without an overbearing person asking you to admire them constantly. Love begins to walk away.

    Love requires nourishment. Just as our bodies require food, so does love. How can you possibly feed love when you find it more desirous to feed work? Or how about a golf game? An addiction? How about the lust for someone else? Again, love walks out the door.

    We all have a friend or relative who choose to live alone, without any ties of love. They're cool while in their 20's. By the time their in their 30's and 40's, the become weird, uncomfortable to be around with. 50's and 60's, best to stay away from. Their life stories revolve solely around themselves, not about the lives they shared with love, but about what they did. It it is the most boring conversations you will ever have.

    You cannot go through life looking into a mirror, all you will ever see is yourself and what's behind you, your past. Live life looking forward, someone is out their waiting for your love. And while looking forward, your love will find someone. Use yesterday to learn from, live your life for today, that way tomorrow takes care of itself.

    -- Posted by Hugh Jassle on Sat, Sep 3, 2011, at 10:15 AM
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