Heartbreak: On Why It's Necessary

Date: August 12, 2011

Title: Ivebeenthinkingaboutforever

Tonight I went to sleep with a broken heart.

I dreamt with a broken heart.

I wake up at 4:35am to the sound of my own sobs. My eyes are blurred and my chest is heavy. My hands are trembling, and I take deep breaths.

I burry my face into my pillow, and gather my covers close to me to the form of a human body, wrap my arms and legs around it tightly, and assume the fetal position.

In between sobs, everything that I’ve taught myself to forget came creeping back

I remember when he... When I... When we...
I remember the way he used to... The way I used to... The way we used to...
He’ll never get to...I’ll never get to…We’ll never get to…

I know I have to stop. I’ve been good lately. I’ve been so good lately.

Every fleeting memory ignored. Sensitive topics avoided. Approaching tears pacified.

Any sign of vulnerability concealed. Pushed down to a place only God and I know about.

But all it takes is one dream.

And with fervent hesitation, and no expectations for a response, I pick up my phone and type: I miss you.

- -

I came across the file above when I was trying to clean out useless documents on my netbook, in attempt to speed up my online stream of The Big Bang Theory (I don’t even know if there’s logic in that). I was absentmindedly deleting file after file on my computer when I came across one that stood out to me – Ivebeenthinkingaboutforever.doc. Right away I knew what it was. Aptly named after lyrics of one of my favourite Frank Ocean songs at the time, I knew it was my heart-felt journal entry that I had written almost a year ago.

I wrote it 5 weeks after my break-up with a guy I thought was my soul mate. And 3 weeks after I thought I had gotten over him. It was my emotionally-driven expression of my tragedy in love. I cringe when I read it again, feeling both silly for ever allowing myself that kind of expressive vulnerability, and grateful that I’m no longer affected by that relationship. Although at this point, I can whole-heartedly say that I have moved on, and am now able to recognize and appreciate the fact that we were neither right nor good for each other. We were just two people who met at the right place, at the right time, and fell in love. And despite our relentless attempts to stay in love – because in all honesty, I think we both so badly wanted to stay in love –, we had to eventually surrender to reality and admit to ourselves that we were heartbreakingly incompatible.

Ironically, I dreamt about my ex last night – the first time in over 8 months. But this time, I didn’t wake up in tears, or feel the pangs of love-lost. Instead, I felt nostalgic. Though not for him or the memories we shared. I was nostalgic for feeling. Or feelings? Okay, wait, this isn’t coming out right. Let me rephrase this:

I was nostalgic for the feeling of a full-heart, however heavy. I missed being in love, and loving someone so hard that I find myself going out of my way to do or say things I can’t or won’t usually say or do, because of my pride. I missed the rainbows and butterflies I imagine are floating around when I’m with someone I’m crazy about. I was nostalgic for blissful, witless, romantical glee. I missed the feeling of being so in love that it made me want to build a giant ship, fill it with people (and not enough life boats), have it hit an iceberg, sink, and leave me with nothing but a giant wooden door, only to let my significant other use it as a floating device, as I sacrificially sink to my icy death… just ‘cause I love him that much. Better put (and in reference to a One Tree Hill Brucas moment), I just missed giving a rat’s ass about someone.

Given my track record, my first thought at that realization was: Wtf? What the hell is wrong with me?

Why do I have feelings of homesickness, if you will, for romance? Isn’t this exactly what I don’t want? To feel the same way I did a year ago? To feel so cataclysmically hurt that I considered moving to a different province to avoid everything and anything that remotely reminded me of him, or us? To have every waking and sleeping moment be haunted by a memory that is neither welcomed nor unwanted? Didn’t that last relationship make me want to never give myself so entirely to another man again? Do I really want to be writing shitty, depressing entries about my shitty, depressing breakups again?

 Does this mean I want a boyfriend? Because I’m almost positive that I don’t want one right now. I enjoy my new found sense of autonomy (my exes always tend to be over-bearing and anxious). I love my life right now. I’m in love with the novelty of freedom and liberty. I love casually dating boys I don’t intend to love or marry. I love being able to see, dance with, hug, kiss, or fool around with whoever I want. I like being able to hold on to something that I know isn’t mine to keep. I love being happily single.

 So how can one dream about a person from my past give me a sudden inclination to love someone again? And do I really want to get my heart broken again?

 And after much debate, I've come to a conclusion that yes, I do want to get my heart smashed in to a million – no – a billion pieces again. (Do you guys think I’m crazy yet? lol) Yes, I want to fall in love with someone and put my faith, trust, and future in their hands – knowing that with it, I gamble both my heart and sanity. I want to meet someone who I will think is my soulmate (again), knowing that it comes with the possibility that they won’t feel the same way. I want to love someone who can potentially hurt me in that way where I can physically feel the thump of my heart dropping in to my stomach.

 Listen Judgy McJudgerson, I know what you’re thinking… I know you’re wondering why I, a young lady of certain intelligence, would willingly take an emotional beating, with no regard for self-preservation. And my answer to that is this: Because it’s necessary. The heartbreak is essential to my happiness. Because the before and after of ‘Ivebeenthinkingaboutforever.doc’ was and is fucking awesome. Because the time before that was fantastically perfect. I felt loved, cherished, valued, and adored. Because there was a time before that when I felt like I was living in an annoyingly cute bubble of affection – a time period where in everything and anything he and I did was genuinely and nauseatingly endearing to the other. A phase in my life where I was so blindly in love that baby talk and nicknames like ‘bobo’ became acceptable behaviour from my boyfriend.

 And don’t EVEN get me started on the after – what it was like when I finally got over it. The after was when I began to find myself, remembering things about me that I had long forgotten while I was in a relationship. I remembered that I prefer tequila over beer, that I do, in fact, very much enjoy interacting with the opposite sex. I remembered that I like to dance at clubs, sing in cars, take long showers and take my time when I get ready to go out. I also remembered that I prefer eating at ghetto restaurants in skittish parts of the city, over fancy restaurants because I feel that they have more character.The after was when I realized that I had the freedom to do all of these things, without the need of anybody’s approval. It is a time of egocentric-independence and self-fulfilling-selfishness (in the most positive sense of those descriptions). It was also a stage when I re-(re)-discovered dating. I was able to re-acquaint myself with the simple pleasures of uncertainty and discovery. Discovery in the sense that every sensation, even ones I’ve experienced before, seemed new and exhilarating. When you’ve been with the same person for a long period of time, you forget what a first kiss feels like. So when I finally kissed someone new for the first time, the novelty of the affection was electrifying. Believe me when I say I relished in the immensity of that gesture, and felt every tread of that kiss – the anticipation beforehand, the butterflies upon its execution, the passion in the moment, and finally, the daydream-like phase after its termination. And this is just the first-kiss we’re talking about ;) .

 So going back to my previous point (if you’re still following my haphazard train of thought), which was my seemingly foolish sentiment that if given the choice, I would relive that miserable August night when I dreamt with a broken heart. Because heartbreak is the core of two equally wonderful experiences – and without it, being in love and falling in love will cease to exist. So I welcome heartbreak... better yet, I embrace heartbreak. The before and after of Ivebeenthinkingaboutforever.doc is the trajectory of my entire 20s, summed up, and waiting to happen. And it will happen … over and over again, whether we like it or not. So I say, guh head girl (or boy), wear your heart on your sleeve. Love blindly and recklessly. Fall in love, get your heart smashed (and repeat). Time heals all wounds. What doesn’t kill you, only gives you something to blog about.

(This post is dedicated to beautiful, vulnerable women with courageous hearts.)