Eros

"To love at all is to vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entangle ments; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in the casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside heave where you can be perfectly safe from the dangers of love.....is hell."

C.S. Lewis

And so I quote from C.S. Lewis's "The Four Loves". I read this book years ago and enjoyed it greatly. I mean, how could one NOT enjoy reading Lewis? This book focuses on the four types of human love: storge, philia, eros, and agape - otherwise known as affection, friendship, erotic/romantic, and the love of God. This particular quote has always unsettled me. Why? Because of the four described loves, I am comfortable with three of them: affection, friendship, and God's love. However, I find myself pretty disconcerted with the fourth one. Why? I have my reasons and I would rather not get into the boring, yet almost gory, details. I suppose hurtful experiences with romantic love will do that to an individual though. At least that's what it's done for me. Now, I'm afraid that I've become a cynic with "romantic/erotic" love. It's sad, really. I wish it wasn't this way for me. But it's like how Lewis described it to be, this impenetrable and unbreakable place feels so safe. Perhaps I am destined to remain in this safety box of hell. Or else, maybe, just maybe, I will meet someone who is willing to stay long enough to penetrate through my walls.