I know what love is. Love is when my Dad checks on my dying cat every day, so I will not be the one to find him dead. Love is when a knife is twisted in my chest for pain that is not my own. Love is when my grandfather drops my grandmother off at the door to Walmart, and he walks from the back of the parking lot in the rain. Love is no grand revelation or transient infatuation. Love is sedulous and unconditional, but love is not easy.

The gaping and irrevocable flaw in love is that we love people. The apples of our eyes are hard to love because as humans, we have flaws, and we screw up repeatedly. To enter into a loving relationship with someone is quite possibly the most idiotic thing we do on Earth. It is one of the rare things that are guaranteed to eventually bring us pain, for if you truly love someone, they will hurt you. Initially the object of your affection will be perfect; they will be infallible in every way, but that honeymoon phase will eventually end, and you will either be left with a hole in your heart where they once were or a scar where you patched up the damage and trudged on.

Whether your love betrays you, does not value you, or leaves you, once you have loved, you are never completely whole again. You begin your life as a fresh new apple: you are beautiful and whole. In your eyes the world is good, and you are happy. Then someone comes along, and they pick you up. You love, and you are loved, and it is good, but then you find out they have flaws and pain and their own type of suffering, and they do not mean to, but they drop you. And you are bruised. You are no longer the shiny clean apple you once were, but you try to go back to it. You pick yourself up and try to patch the hole the best you can and move on. Then another comes along, and they are intoxicating. They want to hold you and love you, but you are scared. You hesitate. They pick you up, and you have never felt anything like this love before. Your first love was infatuation in comparison, but then you feel something cut into you. Your love has taken a bite out of you and now all you can see is the ground quickly approaching your face. This time is more difficult. You can try to cover a bruise, but you quickly learn that as hard as you try, you cannot fill a hole with another person’s love. You can look in the mirror and try to forget the hole exists, and with time it may shrink, but it will always be there.

No matter how much your love truly loves you, they will still eventually hurt you because they are not perfect, and neither are you, so why? Why the hell do we keep putting ourselves out there to be hurt if we know what will happen? Why are the people who have loved considered the happiest when their apples are the most bruised? If an act is guaranteed to cause you pain, possibly worse than you have ever experienced before, why would you willingly throw yourself into it?

I struggled with this concept for a long time, but then when one of my friends was deeply hurt, I had a revelation:

You see, when your love is hurt, you hurt with them.

Other things in life are going to hurt you that have absolutely nothing to do with the affection you feel toward another, and when you deal with those struggles you can feel completely alone, an isolated ship miles from the nearest shore. All you want to see is a light in the row boat coming out to save you, even if you know you are a mighty vessel, and there is no way that tiny rowboat could ever pull you to shore, at least you are not left alone in your own mind. That rowboat may hurt you, but it will float alongside you during all the storms.

So let your apple fall, because if you truly love someone, then you will never have to hurt alone.