Dependent on Maya

Having someone and then losing them is a hundred times more agonizing than never having them at all.

When a neighbor of thirty years dies, we grieve—but when the cat we've cared for just three months suddenly dies, our grief is a hundredfold deeper.

Love is a dangerous thing indeed!

That person whose text we're used to receiving with a cheerful ping every morning when we go online—when they fail to text one morning, for reasons known or unknown, how melancholy floods our hearts.

People don't really die from the absence of others; they die from the torment of memory, burning slowly in love's fire.

For someone who was never there, love never takes root. Love grows for those who once circled our lives like planets in orbit.

Someone who never came cannot leave. But someone who fills our life now—the question of their leaving haunts us, the fear of losing them lingers.

The truth is this: the deeper we love someone, the more we suffer from the fear of losing them. This is the terror of being left alone, of hanging by memory's rope and dying a little death each day. It is a fierce and piercing fear.

There's only one reason for this: while humans are somewhat self-reliant, they are a hundred times more dependent on love.