This Is How Your Heart Breaks (Little By Little, Every Day)

I think humans, no matter how incredible developed we have been made throughout the years, our hearts are still very vulnerable. Though time and time again we are programmed and taught not to wear our hearts on our sleeves, lest we get hurt— we still do it anyway. We do it for the sole purpose of experiencing that human connection, of two people who by some reason have found their way to each other, fall in love and live happily ever after. At least, that’s what we hope for. But this isn’t a fairy tale. This is life, and sometimes, life is a big fucking asshole.

In an ideal scenario, as what was stated above, two people fall in love and ride off in the sunset together. I wish all love stories were as easy as that. But in this particular one, two people have that connection but alas—something gets in the way. In this case, and for an increasingly growing number of people, it’s distance.

You meet someone, have an amazing connection but oceans and seas are in the way. What do you do? Are you supposed to follow your head that’s basically shouting to you “Stop it. It will never blossom into anything. You’re so far away from each other. Distance yourself before you get hurt.” I guess a big fraction of people will in fact follow their heads but for a minute fraction, the hopeless romantics, or the more accurate description, the emotional masochists as what I like to call myself, try to silence that voice in our heads and follow our hearts, because, connections don’t come that often, and because of hope. It’s that little fire that burns just a little more with each conversation, yet in the end is what’s going to kill all of us, emotionally that is.

We tell ourselves, it’s fine – that we’re not going to get emotionally invested. That nothing bad could come out of it since you know what you’re getting yourself into. That, at the end of the day, it’s stupid (maybe even impossible) to fall for someone you haven’t actually met. But, you do. With every video call, phone conversation, with every month that goes by, and with every tiny detail you know about them, you find yourself in that place where you have butterflies in your stomach but at the same time, sadness because at the pit of your stomach, you know you’re falling for someone you can never be with.

And that’s when you know you’re in too deep. When who was just a mere stranger, becomes an acquaintance, then a trusty confidante, then the next thing you know, it’s three in the morning but you can’t sleep since you’re aching for their physical presence right there in your bed. Beside you. Holding your head in their chest and caressing your hand.

You tell yourself maybe it could happen, you daydream of the two of you, one day being together even though you know he has made it clear that he only sees you as a friend. Yet you still stay because if you feel so strongly about them, they’re bound to feel the same thing too right? Wrong. It’s false hope. You never have control over someone’s emotions, no matter how much you’ve given them.

How do you stop? Of course the obvious answer would be just to totally disappear, and not talk to them. You know it’s the answer that makes sense, hell, it’s the only answer that you know will be the lesser of two evils because it would hurt less.

And you try to. Damn it, you try your hardest to break it off. But the two words that haunt you like the plague always plays in your head, “What if?” So, you stay. You stay in this limbo of talking to each other everyday, falling for this person, investing yourself both physically and emotionally but having this ache in your heart knowing it can never end well, because you’re here, he’s there and it can never work.

So that’s how your heart breaks, every single day. Little by little until it’s completely shattered, but at the same time holding on to that idea of hope – the thing that made your heart crumble into a million pieces, is the same thing that will put it back together again and make you feel whole.