Love Lounge: Does everything have an expiration date?

I’ve been thinking about expiration dates this afternoon — and, well, I may have gotten a bit overemotional while listening to Gordon Lightfoot’s If You Could Read My Mind, too — and how much of a role these dates play in our lives. If you think about it, we do live our lives according to expiration dates. We make sure the yogurt isn’t spoiled before we eat it. We check the date of that Chipotle coupon before getting our favorite dinner dish. We spring clean our makeup vanity, throwing out all the old, dried-up products to make room for all fresh ones. We sometimes even hurry up and use our cell phone minutes to make sure we don’t lose them.

But what about other things in life? You know, those things that are more abstract than literal, more emotional than logical? How about love? Career? Friendship? I often wonder if these things can ever expire too. If we approach love like a carton of expired yogurt, is there a time when it — whether it be a relationship or even just a simple school-girl crush — can be past its prime? Maybe things just naturally run their course after awhile. Maybe things are meant to morph and change and transform, just as we inevitably morph and change and transform through the years. Because if we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves holding onto something that has already expired. And like that soured yogurt, it will make us sick. That can never be healthy, can it? So maybe part of the challenge is figuring out how to walk that fine line and learn to recognize and accept endings for what they are — simply expiration dates. It doesn’t mean that it has to be a sad thing or even something that we have to mourn the loss of, you know?

Does that make any sense at all, friends? What do you think? What expiration dates in life have you experienced? How did they make you feel? How did you approach them? Any advice you have for others going through the same thing? xoxo

[Photos via We Heart It]