The only true paradise is the one you’ve lost.

~ Marcel Proust

How many times have we failed to appreciate something fully, until it’s lost to us for good?

At that point, we’d give anything to go back. To make it right. To fully appreciate it.

To have the paradise we failed to recognize when we had it.

But perhaps the loss, itself, is what makes it paradise.

Perhaps we need the loss to see the paradise.

Or maybe it wasn’t paradise at all. Just loss.

Ah. The examined life is hell, isn’t it?