Meaning:
Parting is both sweet and sad
Background:
Juliet: Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow
-- Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II (1594)
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Sentimental hogwash!
-- Mr. Potter (as in "It's a wonderful life.")
The phenomenon is often observed during a passing and pathological phase when
lovers can't get enough of each other and it's hard for them to part, which
would almost inevitably lead to social anxieties and personal traumas in later
stages. It's been diagnosed as a chemical imbalance, similar in cause and
symptom to the Faking Sorrow Syndrome (or FSS), typical in a youth. Scientists
in academia and the drug industry are hard at work for a solution.
R&J's love became immortal because they saw what was coming and exited in time:
bosses, mortgages, affluent diseases, in-law visits, ageing, etc., the mess which
even Shakespeare would think twice before shaking a stick at.
The job of the rest of us suffering sinners today is to see the monster as it is
and avoid wasting the rest our lives on prose exaulting the fleeting surge of
some brain chemicals, no matter how bitter sweet it plays in our minds.
