Love Like You've Never Been Hurt

Saw this sign in a store this weekend and it made me stop to consider whether or not I did these things, or even agreed with them.  After some pondering I realized, with some interest, that the only one I had trouble embracing entirely was "Love like you have never been hurt."

It's not that I disagree exactly.  This sounds like a good philosophy, and fits well in this list of positive life-affirmations.  But I'm just not sure any of us can actually do this.

I'm not sure it's possible to love like you've never been hurt.  Is it?  Don't we all carry with us some of the leftover woundings from hurts within each relationship itself, and baggage from stuff that happened in other relationships? 

Isn't each love more of a mixture of sweet and sour that ends up being good and honest and true because we've lived through the hurts and are brave enough to keep loving and/or love again?  Maybe the hurts make us wiser lovers.  Maybe loving like you've been hurt is a deeper love.

Maybe that's what the sign is trying to say.  And if so, then, yes, I'm all for it.  I would say, right or wrong, that I don't love with the same quick, reckless abandon that I used to when I was oh so much younger than I am now, before I was hurt.  But I find that my experience of love is grittier, fiercer, less selfish now, in my post-hurt love life.  It's more chosen, more deliberate, more secure.

It's a crazy thing we do, giving our hearts away to imperfect others, while at the same time holding in our imperfect hands the hearts of beloveds we would never want to wound.   Risky business, this loving thing.

But never mind.  No one's watching or listening, the possibilities are endless, there's a little of heaven here on earth, there really are no winners, and plenty of family and friends.  So, according to the sign, and because of the great blessings of our lives, we apparently have lots of joy to do.