In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 27
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I envy not in any moods…
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

Love can be painful, indeed. And it’s not just the losing that hurts. I find it so painful to see someone I love suffer, or the way a close relationship ends unexpectedly. To see a loved one in pain or in fear just breaks my heart. Sometimes I wish I weren’t so sensitive. I wish I could turn away from those painful feelings and be a bit more distant, a bit more matter-of-fact. But I realize that would also mean that I was a bit less in touch with love. And that is not something I would wish to give up. To be true to my best self, I must embrace the reality that the more I love, the more painful the loss.

In writing about the death of his dear friend, the poet Tennyson expressed this truth in the music and rhythm of these words:

I hold it true, whate’er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

‘Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

I think we instinctively turn Tennyson’s observation into a question: is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved before? We are often undecided about the answer, plagued by the question at a very deep level. We ask, wouldn’t it be better to protect ourselves from the pain of loss by never loving—really loving—at all?

Much of the isolation we experience in life is related to this fear of loss. If we stay distant, we imagine we protect ourselves. This is very unconscious, of course. We don’t consciously set out to keep a buffer between ourselves and others. We say we want to be close, but we tell ourselves that we can’t be close because we haven’t met the right person or we don’t have the time, the patience, the trust, or the flexibility to risk it.