The Pursuit Of Love

Deep and long-lasting, loved-filled, true friendships can save more lives than any other relationship. This is where my story begins as it was the love of a friend that got me through the impossible and gave new meaning to the saying turning lambs into lions. The most frustrating thing about chronic illness is the loss of self that accompanies it. The diagnosis, or initial lack of it in my case, has a cruel way of turning your life upside down and backwards. Everything you knew about yourself disappears and you are left with someone you do not recognize. Being a once athletic, cheerful teenager with a positive outlook on life at the time, it was hard to look in the mirror months after the onset of symptoms and see this mutated version of yourself. …show more content…
The pursuit of love coincides with the quest to find one’s soulmate yet Westerners frequently associate this term with romantic love. In the text, Aristophanes explains the concept of soulmates by recounting the Greek myth that states that human’s beings once had two faces, and two pairs of arms, legs and eyes, yet Zeus fearing their power divided them in half and condemned them to spend the rest of their lives trying to find their other half. This secular concept is supported by my personal experience as through my abiding friendship love, I was able to find my soulmate. Since philia is characterized as trusting someone else and being loyal to them, this vow of fidelity to another allows them to earn the title of your second-self. Nonetheless, this second-self does not mean that they are a mirrored version of yourself and so this also corresponds to Socrates statement that we love what we lack. For example, I consider Will to be my opposite or antithesis; I am a morning person, he is a night owl. I am a planner and adventure seeker whereas he is impulsive and would rather spend the day in bed. I am studious and he is well, not. Even though we are opposites, there are many things I love about him because they are what I lack. He is clear-headed and logical, self-reliant and optimistic, things I wish …show more content…
We love those that can inspire in us a promise of this and the hope of an abiding grounding for our life. Chronic illness and depression had a vindictive way of taking away my sense of purpose and made it impossible for me to see an end in sight, let alone a positive one. I contemplated taking my life repeatedly and without Will and the friendship love he showed me, I can honestly say I would not be here today. I think something all humans secretly strive for is to find our purpose and realize that we do in fact have a place in this world, a home for our being, only then can we be content. My best friend saved my life by showing me that I was strong enough to get through this period of suffering that almost cost me my life. That life did not need be so difficult, that there was always hope, no matter how faint it seemed. I do not believe that you can truly save someone from themselves, you can only love and support them and hope that in turn it makes them want to save themselves, and that is exactly what happened in my case. Will’s love ignited something in me that gave me the courage to move forward, his love grounded me and made me feel alive for the first time in months. Will became my home and through him I found my sense of purpose and a reason for living. Suicide does not rid you of your pain but rather transfers it to your loved