Today is Halloween, so between fighting off irrational anxiety about stalkers and serial killers (Boyfriend has been on a non-stop horror movie marathon kick), and wondering which of the zombies on campus are students and which are actually dead, I'm thinking about the scariest thing of all...
LOVE.
Love is this super cute disease that can turn the most rational, educated people into simpering idiots. It can affect women too, but the symptoms are decidedly less pronounced. Did it ever occur to anybody that attraction is a fear response? Heart racing, sweating palms, flushed skin, dilated pupils...all to warn us of what could come.
Love!
That feeling of being so intricately interwoven with another being that if they were torn away from you, you could no longer exist. Vital organs spilling across linoleum, the world growing dark, and all you have time to do is grip at your abdomen and fall to the floor as your other half leaves you. (What? It's all hallows eve, we had to have a tiny bit of gore...) Human beings are so inclined to look for this type of danger. We search for it, pine for it, live for it, DIE for it.
Love.
Because, it's worth it. That's the only logical conclusion, in evolutionary terms. It must be worth it; the reward must outweigh the sacrifice. Having that one person in your life who knows and understands and cares and protects and works to make you happy because you are their happiness. Recognizing that you are worth that devotion and so are they, and you give it right back. That. That is why we ignore the fear, plow right through it. We place absolute trust in another- one of the stupidest things we could do in terms of survival. But we do it. Because it feels good.
Happy Halloween
