Now I’m wondering if this is someone I’ve seen before.

As I’m writing this, I’m listening to Kelly sleep beside me, as I’ve done most nights for the past fifteen years. (She falls asleep quickly; I do not.). And I can assure you that if it were to end tomorrow, or next year, or in forty years, it will seem too soon.

They will tell you in a literature class that tragedies end in a death, and comedies in a marriage, but they neglect to tell you that outside of fiction, every happy marriage ends in a death even under the best-case scenario. That’s the silent punchline, the joke played on us all. There’s a reason that in the vows, the last words before “I do” are a reminder that this love only lasts as long as you both shall live. The end is there, hanging over you, right from the beginning.

And it is absolutely necessary. The inevitable parting is the salt in the caramel; it’s the necessary balance to heighten love’s flavor. Love is an act of defiance, the only weapon we have to beat back the force of time that will inevitably win. That we inevitably lose doesn’t matter. The striving is what matters.

So to directly answer your question: yes. Yes, it is always worth it. Because that grief of parting comes to everyone who loves, and we all know it in our hearts going in. Without loss, there is no love.