“ I know love hurts, but I don’t let it get at me like that.”
So said the cashier at the airport kiosk.
In reference to Demi Moore’s reported self-destruct.
The woman once celebrated for her thin frame and youthful features, now vilified and pitied for her thin frame and youth obsessed features.
Its human nature to attack what we celebrate.
“Everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room.”
The problems start with feelings. They tend to swing. Like a pendulum on a ticking clock.
You can be professing on a balcony one day, and just a few ticks later, plunging a dagger into your own chest. Romeo’s never leave you any poison.
Love does hurt.
But as my unexpected philosopher explained, “you can’t let it get at you like that.”
C.S. Lewis said it like this:
“Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.”
I say it like this:
Emotions are like the tigers in the circus.
Beautiful and powerful and captivating, but if you don’t crack the whip, they will eat you alive.
And really...it’s that simple.
Untrained emotions make you behave like a child, hurt the people you care about, give you possible eating disorders, turn you into drunk bitch...or worse, corpse number two at the end of a tragedy.
Feelings are wonderful, and necessary.
Going through life without them is like only ever seeing the ocean in pictures.
They are the frosting of love, but sometimes you just have to scrape them off. It’s not always a choice between Romeo or Paris.
Save yourself. Crack the whip. Be the boss.
In my own life, To keep with the animal emotion analogy...
I tend to happily hop the fence into the bull pen.
Then wonder why I end up trampled to death all the time.
Forget the somewhat tamed circus cats, make straight for the pissed off 2000 pound cloven hoofed death machine intent on vengeance.
I like to go big and get dead apparently. Fences usually have reasons, and there is something to be said for a tougher skin.
That doesn’t mean a childish heart of stone. It just has to square its shoulders more. Not take any shit.
Listen to someone else troubles. Eat lots of scones. Skip that song on the playlist. Leave the mascara stains for your Fathers T-shirt.
Be the Juliet that survives.
Live to see the summer home. Keep the tiger maulings to a minimum. Grab said bull by the horns and wrestle that son of a bitch to the ground.
