While the first vision of a potential significant other is, for me, entirely visual, when I get closer and gaze into those beautiful eyes and thus her heart, an overwhelming sense of powerlessness erupts, and part of me wants to hang tight to myself, and the other wants to simply lose myself in the other. Yes, those wonderful feelings of amorous affection and infatuation, combined with all the insecurities and neuroses that go with the neverending struggle of finding some semblence of one's own identity while merging in body, mind, heart and soul with another...I guess there is strength in vulnerability. There also needs to be assertiveness. Can we articulate what we actually want from the other, lay our cards on the table, without caring if the other tucks tail and runs? Yes, we can. But it requires a great deal of courage, and, even though every fibre of my being cries out for hot affection, I have to be willing to give it all away on a moment's notice, "love and then loss". Love of Christ sustains, but still, even Jesus' love doesn't replace a warm flesh-and-blood human being, in our arms, in our bed, in our souls. Oh, God, why does it hurt so much sometimes?