It Only Gets Worse

“It only gets worse.”

Sam used to say this to me all the time, immediately from when we first started dating. He was always ahead of the game in our relationship, and if you asked him, he would tell you without hesitation that he knew he was going to marry me before he even officially met me. And he made no secret about it (someday, I’ll share the funny stories and his advice on how to get what you want haha).

So what was he talking about?!

Love. Love only gets worse. Because the deeper in love you fall, the more the time apart becomes unbearable. The more you count down the exact seconds until you can see each other again. The more your lives become intertwined and you truly learn how to perfectly blend the harmony and melody of what your lives together are becoming.

I didn’t really get what he was talking about in the beginning. Again, he always took the lead in flinging himself head-on, without reserve, into demonstrating true love. So after time, I understood.

It really does only get worse. The learning to depend on someone. The learning to trust someone with your entire being. The increasing vulnerability that comes with being fully known and fully loved. It gets worse, because the more selfless the love, the more control you have to give up of “me, myself, and I”. So when Sam would say “this will only get worse”, he was really saying that as our love grew stronger, the longing would only intensify. The commitment and devotion would constantly strive for more depth. The intertwining roots would forever fight to never unravel.

Sam was right. And he still is, although I know he never intended for me to learn this side of the definition. In love, it really does only get worse. And in death, it still only gets worse. At least, for those of us left behind. The longing gets worse, the missing gets worse, the emptiness from their absence gets worse. Because grief really is love with no place to go. So if love only gets worse, griefs follows that pattern tenfold. Like the quote says, “what is grief, if not love persevering?”

Love.
Grief.
Anything requiring sacrifice, vulnerability, and the possibility to be completely transformed.

It only gets worse.