Love makes fools of all of us

Here is what I know of love: it makes fools of all of us.

            We can be perfectly rational creatures. We act with sense, with decorum, with measured steps. That is, we normally act that way. But love: it makes us irrational. We find ourselves doing things. Ridiculous things. We cannot control the way our thoughts ever circle. We cannot control the surge of feelings in our chest, our fingers, our stomach. We cannot stop the torrent of images that dance behind our eyes as we try to sleep.

            Love renders the strongest of us utterly powerless.

           

            I do not try to excuse what I did.

            For no matter the cause, my actions were still my own.

            I would like to think that if I knew the consequences, I would have done something differently. But that is impossible. We cannot know how things will end. Things that are utterly tangled unweave themselves and work out for the best. And things that feel clean and true can end up staining us deeper than blood.

            One thing is clear to me now, now that everything has passed: I am not sure I would have done anything differently. Even knowing how it would end. Because love is not the elixir of fools because only fools drink it.

            All of us—

            Every blessed one—

            All of us can be lost to it.