The beloved utterly significant other was gone; miraculously, I continued to breathe. I continued to eat. But I moped, I was terrible company for a very long time, and nothing seemed to rouse me from this frame of mind. In time, though, the grieving process began annoying even me. My sense of humor returned, food tasted good, my capacity for enjoyment resurfaced. Then one day, a new face piqued my interest, a liaison ensued, and once again a beloved became the focal point of my total and eternal well-being.
For a long time, all went well; I was happy in this next relationship for a long time; then it went kaplooey. All of a sudden, I was once again in deep despair, moving in an aura of pathos from one sad destination to the next, being deplorable company and not caring who thought so. The seasons rolled by, and eventually one day I became too interested in something else to remember to be depressed. Enthusiasm is such a healing; with it comes amusement, laughter, challenge and pleasure.
I no longer loved Gilberte. She was for me like a dead person for whom one has long mourned, and then forgetful has come, and if she were to be resuscitated would no longer fit into a life which has ceased to be fashioned for her. I no longer had any desire to see her, not even that desire to show her that I did not wish to see her which, every day when I was in love with her, I vowed to myself that I would flaunt before her when I loved her no longer.
Cities of the Plain
From that day on, I couldn't look at a fabulous man without thinking, yeah, I can live without you, too. The thought inevitably makes me smile, and rather broadly, a facial expression which I'm told is attractive. If I meet someone, or if I love someone, the knowledge is there, imprinted in my consciousness, that my feelings for that person have no driving need, no sense of desperation about them. My certainty that my happiness does not depend on the presence of another makes it possible for love to contain only what is fine and grand; if that pleasure must end, well so it must, but I know for a fact that I can live without him, too.
The irony of the philosophy, I can live without him, too, is that, if anything, it gives to its possessor an elusive quality compelling to the beholder. Proust said that "a man only loves what he cannot wholly possess." The loss of Albertine creates a long stretch of unhappiness, until he arrives at the understanding that "...I really ought to have discovered sooner that one day I should no longer be in love with Albertine." He could live without her, too.
It is not impossible to believe that a love can grow between two people, and perhaps live forever, should their development and interests follow similar paths. If neither person ever departs, a lifetime of happiness might be possible; but if one person leaves, the potential for other loves remains.
Fearing the end of a current love surely is a sad use of time. Happiness is possible with love, without love, or with a different love. This is a secret that came to me with age, and Proust said that in a few thousand pages.
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