Bill Hicks once said life is just a ride. I have no doubts he was right, too. Like an amusement park ride, life has parts that make us happy, excited, exhilarated, scared, nauseous, sick, and just wanting to get off. By the end of it, some are terrified, some are ill, and some are happy. Just like life. But if life is a ride, then love is a game.

If I had to choose which game most resembled love, I guess I would pick Monopoly. Why? Because Monopoly makes and breaks friendships, brings people closer together and drives them further apart. It makes you laugh and angrier than you knew you could get. Just like love.

Love is a funny old thing, when you think about it. It is a topic that has plagued the minds of mankind since we emerged on this planet. Some have embraced it, some rejected it, and it has completely eluded others. Those who have had it have run the gauntlet of emotions, from the ultimate happiness to the crashing, crushing lows. Those who have never had it will neither comprehend nor understand what it really means or feels like.

But lovers always come and lovers always go

Lovers do come, and they often do go. Whether or not they should, though, is another matter. In today's society, everything is disposable and virtues are as visible and accepted as fairies down the garden. Whereas once upon a time things were appreciated, nowadays we have such wanton abandon. Rather than take the time to work things out, we discard them. There are lessons to be learnt from everything, although that is something else eluding many these days. But, when we learn a lesson why must we apply it to the next part? Why take the lessons of one relationship to the next, and not use them to iron out the problems of this one? After all, if the love is there and the happiness is there, then time and devotion is what is needed. If the lesson is learnt, application is possible and that naturally leads to the solution. Taking one lesson to a new place is worthwhile, but a new place intrinsically has new challenges all of its own. At what point do we stop and work on what we have?

If we could take the time to lay it on the line
I could rest my head
Just knowin' that you were mine
All mine
So if you want to love me
then darlin' don't refrain

Nothing comes easy in life, and what we work hard for to achieve feels better. It is highly satisfying. If we sit and wait for God to drop perfection in our laps we will die unsatisfied; if we strive to make our own perfection we will die knowing that perfection is impossible, but we created happiness.

Love changes people like arguably nothing else does. It turns us into emotional contortionists, bending over backwards to appease, please, comfort and reassure. It forces us to sacrifice our wants and desires, all to see that look of joy on another person's face. Possibly more than anything else, love strips away our exterior and shows the person we really are. Moreover, it creates us. Our selfishness is forced to melt away, or at least diminish, and we must accommodate for someone else being in our life and our heart.

Love creates people.

And then it destroys them.

But it is the one thing that can last forever, if we can keep our head in the right direction and apply ourselves correctly. The ultimate test of humanity is found in those four letters.

Time just fades the pages in my book of memories