Heartbreak

I remember the first time my heart broke. I was young, barely a teenager. My trust was broken. The pain in my chest was heavy. It was difficult to breathe. The sobbing was uncontrollable and exhaustion followed. My body felt weak and I was unable to move for so long it felt as though I may never walk again. Too young for anyone to believe what I was feeling was real I was left alone with emotions I didn't know what to do with. I became destructive towards myself, angry that I was so weak. I started making poor choices just to have control over something as I failed to control my feelings of heartache. Days, weeks, months followed until I was able to make myself believe it never happened. Stored safely away until the next time when it would hit me like a Mack truck. I was a young adult, finding my way in the world, playing house. A loved one lost his son. This beautiful 5 year old boy with a gentle soul and wise beyond his years. Gone. I watched as his family attempted to grieve the unimaginable. My heart broke for them. The pain in my chest stemming this time from the feeling of selfishness. I didn't deserve this heartache. This was not my sadness to feel. I was lost and confused. I made rash decisions to relieve this family of my displaced emotions. Unable to store them away this time I pretended to be someone else, a different version of myself, someone strong enough to move past heartache without looking back. And I didn't look back until my heart was ripped from my chest, broken like never before. A young, single mother that lost her own mother. Probably the worst heartache a girl can ever experience. I wasn't ready. I still needed her. I cried until there should have been no more tears but they kept coming. I allowed the exhaustion to literally take over my entire being. I gave up. I was so angry at the world I decided to not participate in it anymore. I convinced myself the only way to live another day was to not get close to anyone ever again and push away the ones who already were too close. But I was too weak to combat these emotions on my own this time and reality kept slapping me in the face so I couldn't pretend it wasn't real. The memory of being selfish not serving me well the last time I forced myself, kicking and screaming, to let people in at a safe distance. I was incapable of navigating this road alone. I lashed out at these people, angry at my inability to persevere, but they kept showing up. They wrapped their arms around me and slowly convinced me I would survive this heartache. I learned that a broken heart never fully heals it just beats a little differently. And it can break again. The greatest feeling in the world that felt like a pedestal I was standing on to reach the stars, love, led to the most devastating heartache when the pedestal got knocked out from under me. I was old enough to know I had to own the choices I made that led me here. That didn't stop me from questioning what I did wrong, if I had loved enough and if I was worthy of love. Like a "Best Friends Forever" necklace, half of my heart was taken and I feared I would never get it back. I went through the motions of life searching for proof there was more to life than heartbreak. A wall forming around what remained of my heart. The pain in my chest a daily reminder of love and loss. Until perhaps the greatest heartache of all time showed up. I could never have expected this kind of pain existed. Watching my daughter have her heart broken. Scrambling to find the right words while knowing there are no words to make the hurt go away. Trying to reassure her better days were ahead. Wrapping my arms around her wishing I could relieve the weight I knew she now felt in her chest. Internally struggling with the knowledge that she was forever changed while assuring myself that she would be stronger because of it. Hoping I had given her all the right tools to learn from every life experience, good or bad. Believing she would conquer her emotions and allow them to be part of the amazing human she exists to be. And then eating ice cream in bed together like a cliche to mend our broken hearts. No other heartbreak could bring me down again. That's what I thought. It gave me solace. I started taking the wall down, brick by brick, exposing my heart and learning to accept and love myself as I am. A little broken. Definitely crazy. Maybe a tad cynical. But a free spirit at the end of the day. Then my dad died while I was out of the country. I had never been that far away from him before and the helplessness of that was overwhelmingly devastating. I told myself he did it on purpose because if I had been there I would have begged him not to go. He always did anything I asked him to, out of love and probably a little fear. I knew he had lived with the heartache of losing the love of his life for an inconceivable amount of time but I selfishly had taken that for granted. There was nothing else I could do so I mended my heart with the visualization of him reuniting with my mom. I learned to breathe again. I gave myself grace when my heart ached. As the sun sets each evening I am comforted by the understanding that without love there would be no heartbreak. I love deeply therefore my heart will continue to break. And the sun will rise again.