By Moina Arcee, edited July 3 2018

Speaking in years, I have loved more than I have lost. Perhaps it is human nature to dwell on the losses, or perhaps that is just me right now. Love is the best and the worst of things. We have all loved and suffered, and in retrospect the losses seem inevitable. If love is a blessing, loss can be a blessing too.

I have just come out of a twenty-year relationship. It was heaven and hell, toil and tears, a life shared and a love lost. There were more good years than bad, but the bad came at the end so is fresher to the memory. Looking back, I have been callous and selfish in many of my relationships. I have also been generous and giving, overly so sometimes, as if to try to ensure love wouldn’t leave. Now it seems I had little control over many of my relationships and was often left with the consequences of my own bad judgment and ulterior motives.

Such is life. Our own failings come back to bruise us. I still have the will to love, but the future is silent. Tonight, love is in the rearview mirror.