Love, Even If It Breaks Your Heart

She looked at me with an ocean of tears in her eyes and asked, “How do you do it? How did you ever let yourself fall in love again? This hurts like hell…How do you do it?” I couldn’t think of the words to say in that moment, so I just held her, until eventually, she fell asleep.

I’m sitting here now, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest and it kills me to know that when she wakes up, its going to hit her all over again. Unfortunately heartbreak isn’t like a hangover – a glass of water and a good nights sleep won’t make it go away. If I could go back I’d tell her, “ I don’t know how I do it.”

 You’re right, there is nothing romantic about having your heartbroken.

There is nothing heroic about convincing someone that you’re worth the trouble for one more day, only to wake up and repeat the cycle the next day. And what is more ridiculous and foolish than diving over a cliff without knowing how to use your parachute? Love doesn’t make sense. It’s not always tranquil and more often than not when it’s all said and done, you’ll find yourself dropped off in the middle of some desolate field with your heart twisted and mangled without a clue of how to get back home.

You’ll want to give up. You’ll bury yourself in blankets and ice cream. You’ll take 2 shots of whiskey, say “fuck it” and drink the whole bottle. You’ll tell yourself that you’ll never do it again. You’ll try to lock your heart in a cellar and convince yourself that it’s not worth it. If you’re anything like me, you’ll check out for a few days…or a few months.

You’ll go through the motions, smile when it’s appropriate and then go home and cry yourself to sleep. You’ll wonder why the hell anyone would ever put themselves through a pain so intense and all consuming. However, one day, you’ll wake up and it won’t hurt so bad anymore. You won’t feel like crying at the sound of their name. The smell of her shampoo will have faded from your pillows, and the coffee shop where you had your first date will be nothing more than a place you go for really great cup of joe before your day begins.

One day, it will get better.

You will laugh and it won’t feel as forced, you’ll take that shot of whiskey, but not because you’re trying to drown out some other emotion. I can’t say that the pain will completely go away, I won’t tell you that you won’t want to run and hide when some stranger walks into your life with words like fountains of gold cascading over their lips. I won’t tell you to throw caution to the wind. To give your heart away with reckless abandon, or to careen yourself over that cliff without checking the functionality of your parachute first.

But I will say this. What good is a heart that you don’t learn how to use?

Would you rather spend your life hiding from love? Holding back your feelings like a sneeze you’re to scared to release in the middle of a lecture hall? Would you rather drown yourself in vodka and Ben & Jerry’s because you’re far too petrified to give that stranger a chance to make you feel again, or give it a chance, because it just might end up beautiful?

The way I see it, if I have to pick up the scattered pieces of my heart every year for the rest of my life, at least I know that I lived. I would rather enjoy a few months of unbridled, irrepressible happiness & then have to pull myself back together when it ends then to never know what it felt like to lose myself in the sound of her voice. I’d rather feel the debilitating agony of having lost the one I thought I could love forever, than sit in the shadows of everyone else’s happiness.

If I have to know excruciating sorrow in order to experience unadulterated euphoria, I say, bring it on. I guess, that’s how I do it. I tell myself that feeling something for a small amount of time is so much better than feeling nothing. In my life I’ve known heartbreak, and disappointment, I’ve been let down and I’ve left behind.

But what is more, I have loved, I have lost myself in someones arms, I have exposed the deepest, darkest places of my heart and had someone tell me that I was beautiful in spite of my flaws. I have been broken, but I have put myself back together, every single time. I have learned how to use my heart & to me, that’s the meaning of life.