Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14

As I sit listening to three different compositions of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata while trying to ascertain which composition invokes the most sincere emotions, I find myself falling deeper into the notes themselves. When I close my eyes, I see many things begin to take place.

First, there is the darkness that rushes to fill what was left of my vision. With my eyes kept shut, I look into the blackness and reach out with my soul to find something. I know from deep within my own heart, that "something" I am searching for is love. My idealistic view of the world impresses upon me each day that love is the strongest emotion. I could work hard and make millions of dollars, purchase a large house and drive exotic cars but a type of gripping emptiness would still rest deep within me.

That emptiness is a hole -- a large gapping hole that sits dead center within my chest. The edges of that hole are formed by the many thousands of memories of happy moments shared with women in my past. With my eyes still firmly shut, I concentrate on each note that Beethoven placed in this amazing Sonata. The music resonates with my soul, yet with each piano key that is struck, I feel that hole vibrate. I have so much love and compassion within yet it sits idle as just a ridge around so many distant memories of the trials and tribulations that being in love has given to me.

I look out across this great blackness and realize that my heart is littered with the remnants of hundreds of mistakes made by love. I look into the eyes of years past and ask myself if turning left would have been a better choice than turning right at some distant split in the great path of life. Although I had traversed the road I thought was best, I find myself ever curious of those paths never taken.

And with each new piano key that is softly played, I feel the salty tears begin to form in the corner of my eyes. If I press my eyes shut any harder, I know they will begin to slide down my face. There is so much beauty in the world and so little time to experience it. There are too many roads in which to explore and only one chance to choose between two. Yet these forks in life do not occur once or twice, but over and over again.

Yet, there is that voice -- that soft whisper. It is an echo that amplifies itself from the desire to love and to be loved. It is that great omnipotent and all powerful basic necessity of humanity. That word is love, and it carries itself through the sound of every note played in music and through each stroke of color painted on every canvas. It is sprinkled across every memory left by two hearts intersecting when two become one -- at least for a little while -- in this vast journey through the crazy adventures we call life.

To love but one night, to kiss but then never reunite -- it leaves an ineffable tear of sweet sorrow that rests itself on a small crack within an otherwise unbreakable heart. Had I only kissed her 23 times, half of my regret would be not finding the chance to kiss her a 24th. The other half would be not kissing her still once more.