I remember the first time I ever had my heart broken. Jay was tall, incredibly handsome and a perfect gentleman. He sent me roses every single month for the entire year we were together. He bought me my first bottle of expensive perfume (a scent I still love and wear). He sent me cards and wrote me beautiful love notes. I rarely save anything from old loves, but I still have a few cards he sent me. In one, he wrote “I love you, I want you, I need you.” It’s still one of the most romantic things a man has ever given me. We were both barely 18. It’s crazy to think that a guy that young could be that thoughtful and romantic. But he was.
It was an idyllic first love. He completely adored me and we had an amazing summer together. But like most first loves, it came to an end. The week before Christmas, he came to my house to drop off my gift. And as he stood in the doorway, somehow I knew he had cheated on me the weekend before. I’m not sure how girls know these things but sometimes you can just feel them in your bones. He admitted he had slept with someone else and I fell apart. I cried for weeks. I didn’t think I would ever get over him.
But I did.
But I can’t listen to The Payola’s You’re the Only Love without remembering that summer.
There are only two other times I ever felt that kind of hurt. And both occurred in more recent years.
The most memorable one and the most painful by far was three summers ago. I’ve written about it here, so I won’t rehash it all again. But instead of crying in bed for weeks (okay, I may have done that, too) I was more like Diane Keaton’s character in Something’s Gotta Give, sitting at my laptop and writing it all out. Writing and crying. I literally wrote – and cried – for weeks, maybe months. I was completely inconsolable. I remember feeling a genuine physical ache that literally lasted for months. It felt like the pain would never go away.
But eventually, it did.
It’s impossible to go through life without experiencing loss. At some point, we all have our hearts broken. And no matter how many times it happens, it’s one of the few things in life that never seems to get any easier.
It always fucking hurts.
And it’s not something you can prevent although some people think you can control it. A man once told me he would never fall in love with anyone ever again, after having his heart broken by someone else. Then he fell in love with me. And I didn’t mean to hurt him (no one ever plans these things) but after a few years, I decided I needed to end it. The relationship had taken a toll on me, both physically and emotionally, and uncertainty in any relationship can be just as damaging as infidelity. Sometimes it feels like if we end things first, that will make it easier or less painful. But the truth is if you still care about the person at all, it’s never an easy thing to do. And even though I still cared about him deeply, I knew it needed to end.
I spent months questioning my decision. Looking back, I know it was for the best, but at the time, I was too immersed in mixed emotions to see it. It’s almost impossible to separate logic from love when you are completely caught up in the middle of it.
Falling in – and out – of love is completely uncontrollable. You can’t stop your heart from feeling something it feels. And you can’t make someone feel something if they don’t. That’s the tragic beauty of love.
But what if both people still care? What if we held onto that person, instead of letting go and decided to work it out before throwing it all away? That only works if both people want it badly enough and are committed to each other.
Is it easier to walk away and start over fresh with someone new? Or do you stay and try to lovingly mend all of the broken pieces?
All the art of living lies in a fine mingling
of letting go and holding on. – Henry Ellis
Love is the most amazing feeling in the world. So it amazes me how some people are so quick to throw it away. Once a man has captured my heart, I am completely devoted to him. I have lived long enough to know that finding love is rare and I don’t think you should ever throw it away.
Everything could be falling apart around you, but if you have someone who loves you, somehow it makes everything else seem better. Having that one special person on your side can make all the difference. And when they suddenly disappear from your life, it can feel like your entire world has come to an end.
But it doesn’t.
Heart break is inevitable. You can’t stop it from happening if it wasn’t meant to be. And you can’t put all of the pieces back together after everything has fallen apart. And it’s pointless to hold onto to something when the other person has already let go.
Life doesn’t end just because love sometimes does.
That’s when letting go gracefully seems to be the only option.
And no matter how much it hurts when you are going through it, we all heal and we all move past it and we all survive. But even better than that is that we always find love again.
Everyone survives a broken heart. But it still hurts like hell.
After my divorce, I said I would never marry ever again. But the truth is I still believe in true love. I still believe in the fairy tale. I still want to lie in bed with someone at night and kiss and hold hands and make love and fall asleep together. I want to fall in love with every part of his mixed up soul. And I’ll always believe that the only reason we were placed on this earth is to love and to be loved.
I will never stop believing that love is the most amazing thing in this world.
But just to be safe, I think I might sit this next game out. ♥
Image from Pinterest.
Miss Moneypenny Naked 
Our use of the word ‘love’ as a verb, as adults, has always puzzled me. I guess I noticed it when I was in my first relationship after the advent of mobile phones, when it wasn’t uncommon to have 5 or 10 brief conversations a day with my girlfriend, at the end of which generally came the quick “I love you”. And, yes, that practice itself is arguable, as it seems to devalue the phrase when uttered as an almost obligatory sentiment. But she was very young, and it seemed unfair to even broach the subject.
But I began to wonder about using the word or that phrase so blithely and without true, substantial purpose, or using it at all, when it seems the important thing about love should be in the doing, not the saying. As an example, I would never say “I hug you”, and then proceed to hug someone. Or, alternately, tell an attacker “I’m punching you” as I did it. I might tell someone I painted a fence, but only in the context of a greater story, never as a non-sequiturial exclamation – “I sure did paint that fence”, as if to say that my action of painting the fence were somehow enhanced by my words. The paint tells the story.
At this point, I suppose I’ve ruined the whole spell by deconstructing the magical phrase. And maybe it explains a lot about my idea of romance, and why it seems to find no takers. But I stand by my analysis, and here is my point: love is something we have to do, every day, with every action, with intent and results. It is not so much a feeling as it is a process, an active verb with an object, not a passive, intransitive verb. Love comes in the showing and in the sharing. I know I love it when someone remembers a tiny point I made, or something in which I expressed interest in passing, only to surprise me later. I could go the rest of my life without anyone telling me they loved me, as long as someone showed it.
I’m sorry that train ran off the rails, Miss M., and more than once. You are brave for sharing. Like most men, I only remember my derailments for a moment, then quickly change my thinking to avoid rubbing the bruise. And, similarly, I don’t examine the future much either. But I hope there are many more times when you see love made manifest, feel it as a real, substantial thing, and come to associate it with something beyond words, something that lasts. I really do hope this for you.