Eros

The Story of Cupid and Psyche

Psyche was a mortal of incredible beauty, and Aphrodite, goddess of love, was jealous. No one, least of all a mortal, should be as beautiful as she (Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest? Not you). So she sent her son Cupid (Eros) to kill her, but he fell in love with her instead. He visited her every night and made her promise not to look on him. Their affair went on for a while and Psyche became pregnant, but her sisters warned her that her lover was a snake who would devour the child. Psyche hid a knife to kill him, but instead pricked herself on Cupid's arrows and fell madly in love with him, but also discovered who he was. Angry, Cupid left, with Psyche grasping onto his heel. Aphrodite came up with a series of tests for Psyche to achieve immortality, but not until she'd gone into the world of the dead and come back again. In the end, Psyche regains Cupid's love, gains herself immortality, and earns the begrudging respect of Aphrodite.

Though it ends well, the are moments of pleasure, but also incredible pain in this love story.

The day we visited the Coliseum in Rome it rained, so we spent more time there than we'd originally planned while we waited for the rain to stop. There was a temporary art exhibit on Eros upstairs, and different depictions of the Greeks in relationships. Part of their understanding of Eros was the love can sometimes be pleasurable, sometimes painful, and often both at the same time.

Many of the stories we're told as kids end, "And they lived happily ever after," and we imagine that's what life should be when we meet the right person. Maybe there's something wrong when pain is mixed in.

Someone told me recently, "We usually hurt the ones we love most." It's not always intentional, though sometimes it is, but living close to someone, risking vulnerability with them, being with them day in and day out, we're going to hurt each other. He said something at the wrong time that hurt her deeply. She didn't come home until late and his mind wondered where she'd been. He accuses her. She accuses back, and soon something that had been safe and beautiful is broken between them. Life would be easier without relationships because we wouldn't hurt each other.

She wishes he were more. She has a hard time respecting him some days when he yells at the kids, or seems too soft with them. He wishes she wouldn't sound so shrill when she's reminding him again to take out the garbage.

We long for the good moments, the joy, the enjoyment and beauty of relationships, but forget it's often intertwined with pain. The things we're most afraid of, the things we want to hide from others, become apparent, at least if we're being honest with each other. Over time, it's inevitable.

So sometimes we run from relationship to relationship, because it only makes us invest so far and no farther. If we're gone tomorrow, or in a month, they won't see the insecurities; they'll think we're a good person. Intimacy comes through the doorway of conflict, but conflict is hard and some wounds run too deep.

The best relationships last for years, but at the end of these, she's dying of cancer and he is having his heart ripped out as he holds her hand. She watches him, once strong of body and mind, forget his own name and drool at the dinner table. They go to the cemetery gravesides of the friends that used to have over for dinner, played cards with, served in wars with, fought or loved, knowing that soon they'll be parted from each other as well.

What do we do with the painful aspects as well as the pleasurable aspects of love? Is it too much? Do we sacrifice one because the other is too much? Is there value or wisdom that comes from both? Can we have one without the other, or are they two sides of the same coin?