Do you know this song? The link is below if you want to listen to it.
"Then I fell in love, head over heels in love, with the most wonderful girl in the world
We would take long walks by the river or just sit for hours gazing into each other's eyes
We were so very much in love
Then one day she went away and I thought I'd die, but I didn't
and when I didn't, I said to myself, is that all there is to love?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCRZZC-DH7M
The words above are taken from one of this writer's favourite songs - "Is that all there is?" and it is beautifully sung by Brenda Lee. An aunt of mine - famed in the 1940s and 1950s for her beauty and love of life - even had this song played at her funeral some years ago. But the fundamental idea comes from a short story written 1896 by the German writer, Thomas Mann. The story is entitled, "Disillusionment."
But wherever it comes from, there is no doubt that many people have experienced, in the moment of some triumph, that sickening sinking feeling that announces the arrival of disillusionment and the question, "Is that it?"
I have seen it, or I imagine having seen it, in the eyes of athletes, for example, who, after years of training, deprivation, hopes and expectation, finally win that medal. Great, but is that all there is?
What has your experience been? Perhaps you are experiencing this feeling right now? Is this all there is to a pandemic? But mostly, the feeling is connected with something positive, something worth striving for and that does not usually include pandemics. But when you finally get what you yearned for, have you never experienced that feeling that success is not quite what you thought it would be, and you find yourself floating in space rather than skipping over the moon and instead of joy and happiness you feel empty and lost.
You can always try and crush these feelings, but the next time you stand on the stage after winning that prize, or outside the church after tying the knot, getting that novel published or hearing those words, I love you, too - listen out for the voices. They will be there somewhere and blowing with the breeze around you:
"Is that it then? Is that all there is?"
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