Love and death

I suppose it's not a particularly new idea that love and death are connected -- we see this in the phrase "til death do us part," the hilariously melodramatic Romeo and Juliet, the ending line of "What Sarah Said" by Deathcab for Cutie, and countless other pieces of culture that I am too ignorant to think of at the moment.

Evidently, there's something about the concept of love that leads us to believe that it ought to last an entire lifetime -- that is, until death.

I guess that's what scares me the most. Not the loving itself, but the unwritten lifetime contract associated with it.

You can break the contract, sure; some people even go so far as to expect it of others. But the issue is that the contract isn't just about you -- there's another person involved too. And I don't know if I can entrust myself with that much responsibility.

Of course, it's also just as likely that you are that "other person."

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My sister once pointed out to me that in French, love and death sound essentially the same: l'amour and la mort.

It might just be a coincidence.

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Operating under the assumption that couples fall in love before their 30s, choosing your significant other is something that will potentially affect 2/3 of your entire life -- a decision that took maybe a tenth of your life to make.

That worries me.

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The frightening part about death is that it's inevitable; the frightening part about love is that nothing is.

Somehow, the latter seems worse.

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I don't actually know where I'm going with this, "this" meaning a variety of things.

But I'm patient.
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