ONLY LOVE REMAINS

Love is strange. When you fall, and fall hard and deep, sometimes there is no climbing out from under its spell. No matter how carelessly the other person has handled your heart. No matter how much the other person might no longer deserve your affection. One of my friends is going through it right now. She's in the process of divorcing her husband, who, for the past few years, has basically treated her like dirt. She should hate him. And she does. But she loves him, too. After all, aren't love and hate flip sides of the same coin? There's such a thin line between them.

Although I have no experience to compare to what she is going through, I can relate. I've been going through a bit of emotional drama myself. There's someone in the corner of my mind who refuses to budge. And no matter what I do, it doesn't work. He feels the same way I do, but being stubborn Tauruses, we both refuse to bend too much. I need for him to prove his love, walk the walk instead of merely talking the talk.

I'm not sure what he wants from me. He pops in and out of my life, to my emotional detriment, and his motivation is unclear. I know he's looking for something. It's right in front of him. All he has to do is grab it and hold on. But as seems to be par for course here in Argentina, everyone is addicted to the hunt. Once they catch their prey, the don't know what to do with it, or they no longer want it.

I've tried cutting off all forms of contact that I can control. Following the advice of my friends, I blocked him on MSN, blocked him on Facebook. In my head, I make lists of his shortcomings. I cut him down to size. My friends, who are astonished by the depth of my feelings for someone I dated for such a short time, tell me that it's the only way to forget and move on. But it's not so easy. I watch what my friend is going through, and I know it's not so easy. Her situation is so much worse because it's one-sided. Her soon-to-be-ex husband appears to have moved on emotionally. That's heartbreaking. With me, only love remains, which, come to think of it, might be just as bad, because we should be able to work it out. I want to work it out. But a lack of words gets in the way.

Time heals all wounds. So says that old cliché. Perhaps, but the deepest wounds leave scars. And those scars acquired on the battlefield of love not even the best plastic surgeon can fix.