Stages

Funny how one goes through these classic stages. Well, not funny, but you know what I mean. There is disbelief. Then anger. Then denial. Then sorrow. Ultimately acceptance. It doesn't matter how often something occurs - a death, for instance, an affair, a divorce - you go through the same stages every time. You cannot "skip" any of them. I suppose that one gets 'good at it', in a certain sense. Not that the symptoms are less painful or less present, but in the sense that you've been there before, you've come out on the other side, it's not the first time you've seen the maze, and you know which paths definitely lead to dead-ends. "Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all," as Soren Kierkegaard put it. It is, therefore, both joy and sorrow, each in its own time and place. "My love should matter," one says to himself, "and this should be perfectly apparent to all." And it does matter. Yes, indeed, it does. That's why it hurts.