To be loving is to be open to grief, to be touched by sorrow, even sorrow that is unending.
Bell hooks refuses the comfortable lie that love protects us from pain—instead she names grief as love's inevitable companion, not its failure. Most self-help wisdom promises that the right attitude or technique will spare us suffering, but she insists that opening ourselves to another person *requires* accepting we'll be hurt, perhaps irreparably. When you sit with a parent declining into dementia, you understand this: the love doesn't lessen the sorrow, and accepting that trade-off is what keeps you showing up. Her genius is suggesting that "unending" sorrow isn't a reason to withhold love, but rather proof of love's authenticity.
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason...”
Marcus Aurelius“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. I...”
Viktor Frankl“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
Seneca