Frankly Put: Lessons From Heartbreak
They often say that experience is the best teacher. If life is the school then I can safely assume that heartbreak is just a unit in the course of it. In most cases it isn’t an elective… We must learn, so it seems. Thus, our hearts must break for us to examine what makes them up.
I have thought about consolidating thoughts a lot on this particular reflection for a while now and I figure, I won’t die if I do it. For some reason, the universe has intrusively brought back repeatedly, these thoughts on this. Not even directly anymore, which is the weird thing. It’s the way the thoughts are triggered by actions outside myself that really is puzzling. Like reading for a test for a class you never were meant to attend.
Nevertheless, I suppose in my short two decades, I stand right to some say on this unit, Heartbreak 101 — Introduction to Love and its Pain. This isn’t necessarily a lecture though. Like the previous Frankly Told’s, these are just quick thoughts on a number of things I have picked on in life and dealing with this particular topic. Let’s get right into it, no?
Lesson one. Heartbreak as a window for gratitude. Of things I wish I was told earlier on in life. Heartbreak requires gratitude, I think more than a lot of things we use to cope. It’s not always “get over them by getting under me.” Sometimes, it’s getting over them by accepting the situation on the ground and being thankful for it and how it exists not what it was or what it could have been.
In my experience, I think regret for what could have been often is the bigger burden to carry than the absence of what is and it is only as recent as 2 years ago, that I began to interrogate that and seek an answer from myself as to why I am so quick to sweep under the rug of what-ifs the actual “what is.” Thus, I shouldn’t cry when I trip over the bumps in my living room.
Lesson two, Heartbreak is not selfish. This one is odd in that heartbreak can be very giving. For all that is taken away, it brings equal and more of. I might even step further in saying that it doesn’t only affect you but the people around you. It dishes out itself to others like it is on an Oprah-esque show on how to bring the most for the least both negatively and positively.
In some ways, I wish I could have saved the people, who were not involved, the fallout from the same but unfortunately, a bomb cannot coat its shrapnel when it explodes or implodes. In the same way, I couldn’t help the reaction of a broken heart. Maybe I could only take on the paradigm shift it brings but the hurricane is difficult to fight from the eye of the storm.
Lesson three, heartbreak is passed on like an unwanted rash. If not acknowledged and mitigated, the contagious nature will leave other hearts itching an irritation they can’t find. If I could put it in less flowery terms, there comes a time where heartbreak begins to feel contagious and even when you are not the heartbroken, a relationship with someone who is, could leave you with similar symptoms.
True, the burden may feel lighter when there are other hands to lift it but do we care not for the fact that those hands can still get sore? We may feel the good-natured want to lift a broken heart but what happens when our arms get sore? Do we not stand the chance of dropping it and breaking it further? I suppose it is an interesting way to look at the healing journey but I kinda like that I learnt to also see this as a part of it.
Lesson four, heartbreak breaks hearts (you don’t say). The saying is common, “if you do not heal from what hurt you, you will bleed on people who didn’t cut you.” There is always, even though never intended, the unconscious spillage of blood from a broken heart that can quickly sour a relationship that had no stake in your broken heart.
I, often in interacting with people who have had their hearts broken, ask myself, “Do they mean what they are saying or are they speaking from a broken heart?” whenever something off-colour is said. In some ways, I wish I saw it in myself at that point in time and I could grant myself the grace that would allow me to be vulnerable enough to hold that hurt in the company of others. Still, I survived but perhaps I could have lived.
Five, heartbreak is a wall with doors. It isn’t always something to “get over” sometimes it is something to “get through”. To get through it, you don’t have to break through it by self-deprecating actions. Sometimes, maybe you just need a little more time to fashion a key to unlock the door.
In this life, I would like to believe it more common than I know, that there are people who you are never meant to get over. You can try, hundreds of lifetimes over but your heart just cannot. At the same time, I don’t think life allows you the luxury of standing still. You must keep moving. Begs the question, how do you move past a wall you cannot get over?
It’s a wonder to me how much a heart can change from breaking. Sometimes the pieces don’t quite fit back together again. I look to the saying “You never love the same after heartbreak.” I give flowers to the hearts that quickly fall wholly into love after receiving the cracks that develop faults in the way we love. I give hope and patience to those that don’t.
I suppose it is our duty to mine the gold we can use to repair broken hearts in the art of “kintsugi” and learn to line the empty spaces with it, to put it Frankly.
