trust, betrayal, love...hope?

Graham Greene once wrote, "The only love which has lasted is the love which has everything, every disappointment, every failure and every betrayal, which has excepted even the sad fact that in the end there is no desire so deep as the simple desire for companionship."

Perhaps all I truly ever wanted was companionship. To simply have another living soul there to share my triumphs and my sorrows with, to be there on the good days and the bad days, as Peyton says to Lucas, “to be there standing next to me when all my dreams came true.” I think everyone wants that innately; all we all really want is to come home to: a lover, a roommate, a pet, a family, whatever, waiting for and happy to see us. Given the choice between going to bed alone and falling asleep next to someone who loves us I think we would all choose the latter.
Maybe all we really want is someone to take away that feeling that we are all alone in the world.

Or perhaps it was more. All I know is I gave my heart completely and totally. I did what all the books and movies and grown-ups who had loved and lost had told me to do. I put myself out there, and I truly and utterly allowed myself to be consumed with the intoxication of love; I put my foot down on the accelerator and speed forward fearlessly without once consulting the rearview mirror. Would I take it all back, knowing what I know now? I think I would have been a little more cautious, a little less blinded, a little more conscious of the pain that ensues once trust is lost. But maybe as T.H. White said, "Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically to those who hardly think about us in return."

Once trust is lost and the knowledge of the pain of betrayal replaces the intoxication of love consuming the soul, it is impossible to imagine the reverse will ever occur again. Ignorance is truly bliss; once we are robbed of innocence and taught of the pain and suffering that can occur in love, is it possible that we will ever be able to experience again a love so intense, so raw, and so pure? Was the innocent love of Romeo and Juliet truly the purest form of love, or is love with the knowledge and experience of man’s hurtful and evil capabilities true love? Most importantly, how can we allow ourselves to give our hearts so completely to another after being betrayed?

And why is it that the questions we most need the answers to are most often the ones we can’t find?