Welcome to the broken hearts club!
There should really be a club, or at least a welcoming committee, for
something as monumental as this. You'd think within a world that gives
us genius little smartphones and turn-by-turn navigation we'd have
created some sort of community for the ones who just need to hear these
words after their heart is gouged out, "Hey, you're here. You've
arrived. Don't be ashamed. You're in for quite the journey back to
wholeness. It gets better. I promise. You're not alone, toots. You're
not alone."
I'd give just about anything to stand outside your door right now
with some brightly colored poster that has your name plastered on the
front of it with all the fourth-grade glitter your little heart can
handle, as if I was welcoming you home after a long trip. As if I were
the first one to scoop you up when the wheels of your lovesick plane
touched down on the runway and you found yourself crashing hard into
reality.
It feels awful, right? If you're feeling run over, ramshackled,
desperate, lonely, confused -- a cross between being hit by bus with all
your ex-girlfriends on it and having all your organs spill out of you
like a pinata that was cracked open by all your ex-boyfriends -- then
you are right where you need to be. Congratulations, you're in the
center of it. You think something broke inside of you but you're still
kicking like a champ. It's going to be painful for a while but this is
life handing you a spare moment to suck in and say, "Yeah, this is
okay."
But once again, welcome.
You've become fully, fully human. You've learned the gritty secret
about love that the movie screens, and romance novels, and conversations
with best friends over coffee could never prepare you for: It hurt
sometimes. It guts you out sometimes. It makes you lonely. It tramples
you like a thousand zebras, lions, panthers, gazelles skipping over
Mufasa and coming straight for you.
You'll go through phases. A broken heart is an ever-evolving train
wreck of emotions that often gets accompanied by not wanting to eat,
shower, or brush one's hair. At one point you won't want to change your
clothes or leave the house. At another point you're going to want to
take a chainsaw to couples holding hands out in the road. You'll
convince yourself you'll never slow dance again, never date again, never
cuddle again. You'll wallow like a champion and ugly cry at random
times in the middle of the grocery store when that song that always
reminds you of the November you had together comes on. No one in aisle 6
is going to understand what forehead kisses meant to you, boo.
You'll feel the most bitter a) when your friends are experiencing
happiness b) when any Reese Witherspoon movie comes on c) when you see
some ridiculously plotted-out marriage proposal in someone's Facebook
stream that was clearly planned by some subhuman Pinterest freak d) when
you're going home alone. Oof, that is the winner.
Pause.
We all go home alone sometimes. It won't kill you. It won't destroy
you. It won't pummel you the ground. You're going home alone at some
point. It'll be the hardest thing to do when it'd be so much easier to
call. Or shoot over a harmless text. Or send an email. Or show up at
their door. But you're going home alone. Swallow. Breathe. We're moving
on.
You might not ever see the person again.
I just want you to know that could be the best reality. It's just
this: The last thing I want for you to believe is that closure is
resting and waiting in a conversation with someone else. We fool
ourselves into thinking that we can never fully let go, and move on, and
push forward until we just get those final words out. And so we wait
wistfully for the day when we meet again in coffee shops or by the
roadside after 17 years. Chances are, he isn't gonna write you letters
every day for 365 days. Chances are, he isn't building the house with
the wraparound porch for you and growing some barbaric beard that
screams "Hey girl, I was too depressed by the thought of your face that I
never picked up a razor." The strongest thing you might ever learn to
do is write your own love letters and build your own dang house.
Thought to ponder: If our chance to move on was always in the grips
of someone else's hands, what kind of story would that be? If you've got
final words, just release them now. Final words are floating everywhere
in the atmosphere, dear. Sometimes you just need to say them out loud
to the night air when no one is around to hear you but the trees and
whatever you believe is steering the stars above you. Sometimes that's
the best kind of closure you can get. It might not be fleshy, and it
might not end with some regretful kiss and a Dawson's Creek
speech in the middle of field when rain is pelting down on you, but it
will keep you always, always, always as the messenger and never the
maker.
The worst mistake I ever made was believing that I was some kind of
maker. When I got that first broken heart, I thought I got to be the
divine fixer. That I could make him take me back. That I could make him
love me more. That I could make us better. I can't make much of
anything though. It only made me more embarrassed with myself to try.
Beyond making choices and making progress, I can't make much of
anything. But I could move on. I could let go.
There will be forks in the road.
You can probably already see them in the distance. Parties you might
see one another at. Chances to tumble back into one another recklessly.
If you aren't really careful, it's always going to feel like Shoots
& Ladders. The ladders get harder and harder to climb when you lose
so much breath from propelling back down those shoots though.
When I was 16 years old, my best friends and I used to hold "Closure
Ceremonies." If you can imagine four girls sitting around in a circle
smashing necklaces and teddy bears to bits with hammers until the voice
boxes that said "I love you" fell out from their stuffed guts, then that
was us. We were lovesick girls with anthems of bravery within us. We
burned love notes. We screamed and cussed a bit. And then we held one
another. We didn't give answers. We didn't act like a broken heart was
the oldest thing in our books. We acknowledged that it felt like all the
oxygen had fallen out of the sky and then we held one another under the
stars.
The stars are reliable unlike any other thing in this crazy world.
Leaves fall off the trees. Snow melts. Rain washes away all the things
we wrote on the pavement. But the stars are relentless to shine.
Relentless, relentless, they pull us right up there into the stories of
their constellations. All their little dips and belt buckles and milkier
ways.
Tonight, that's where I want you. Not hurling yourself at your old
lover's car or standing by their window to cry to the sound of their
snoring. Just find the stars. Even if you and I can't forge through the
emptiness together, get to a place where you can see the stars. I'll get
there too. Bring a blanket. Bring hot chocolate, or a coffee, or
whatever makes you feel warm. Bring a sweatshirt that he didn't give to
you. And bring a friend if you can. Tell them you don't want to be alone
in all of this. They should either understand or you should find a
better friend.
Just lay there. Real still. I am going to whisper something that's
going to make you wince a bit: There is someone out there who you gave
secrets and stories and weaknesses and strengths to. They didn't
disappear when your heart cracked open. They're still out there with
parts of you jangling in their jean pockets like spare change.
But guess what?
You're still here.
And you're whole.
And not a single stitch of you is missing, even if you can't possibly believe it's true.
You lost every little thing you needed to lose when you first got
that broken heart of yours. It came right off of you just like it was
supposed to, in the way that sequins shake loose from the costumes of
ballerinas and feathers fall off the wings of the birds that are finally
flying southward bound for home. Don't you ever give someone the
permission to think they took away the vital parts of you. Don't you
ever give someone the permission to they took away part of your
completion.
You are the start to your story and you are the finish.
You lost nothing down this road that couldn't be renewed, restored, remade.
You're whole. You're whole. You're whole. Consider this a lesson in getting stronger.
Baby, baby, welcome. You're fully, fully human today.
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