“You have nothing to lose” is not true in love.
If you remain guarded at the heart, you have lost intimacy, affection, care, intention, love.
If you jump into a fall, dive into embraces, you will at one point let go, and the contrast between together and apart may be too harsh to handle.
You always have something to lose.
Like good stones for skipping, we've lost our edge. A few decades of abrasion turn a rock into a pebble. Smooth, polished, the abuse of life's elements evenly spread across our surface. You know why most people can't fall in love? They're too smooth. They started fitting in. Stopped XYZ. Started XYZ. Stopped XYZ.
All to be better stones for skipping.
Why?
“You have nothing to lose.”
“You have a lot to lose.”
So, what?
You're losing something either way.
Time is the ultimate decider.
Remain guarded at the heart and watch your time tick away. You will be twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty — alone like you were. Did your safety feel good?
“You have too much to lose.”
Risk and reward.
The risk is that you'll get your heart broken. The reward is that your heart can be held. You can hold another's. You can feel life's ultimate gift — to be loved and to love.
When it ends, cry.
When it ends, you can listen to people tell you to be “glad it happened” instead of “sad it ended”. You should have known better when this all began. It will end, whether life or death do us part. I'm not telling you to minimize the damage. I'm telling you to sign up for it.
“Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”