Healing Heartbreak

For most of my life, I have struggled with the idea of love; giving love, having love, and receiving love. Raised by a mother who endlessly gave more than she received, and a father whose love I was never enough for, it is easy to understand why I thought love was so harsh; that it only existed if a cruel reality followed.

At 17, I fell in love for the first time, and I fell in love hard. People always say that your first love is special, and for me it really was. For the first time in my life, I felt seen, safe, treasured, and above all else, worthy. I finally felt like I was seeing the fairy tale love story I had always dreamed of, and I was living it. She cared for me and thought about me in a way that no one had expressed before. She gave me poetry books with pages marked that reminded her of me, she drew portraits of me as gifts, she called and talked me off the ledge of every anxiety attack, and most importantly gave me a space where I felt safe and loved. Having never experienced the feeling before, I became engrossed in it. My life became unimaginable without her. So after almost a year and a half of talking/dating when she called to confirm the feeling I had shoved down for weeks, that she was cheating, I felt like my world had collapsed under me. Crying and gasping for air my life felt like it ended right in that moment. That every word my dad had told me was true. That every feeling and emotion of worthlessness and inadequacy was legitimate. It sent me spiraling into a time where I felt like a child again; unloveable, alone, and flawed. It would be 4 years before I ever let someone close to me again.

At 22, I invited this person over to my apartment at 1 am. Obviously, I was looking for a feeling and not so much love, but they came over and was nothing like I expected. They were cute, shy, and weirdly mysterious. What was supposed to be a one-night stand turned into staying up all night, laying in the darkness, speaking nothing but our truths. I knew then that I would fall for them. The next couple of months were filled with joy, love, empathy, and fun. They reminded me what it was to have fun. To live life and experience it, not just sleepwalk through it. While I spent those months falling further and further for them, they spent it reminding me that they weren't emotionally ready for a relationship. Despite their warnings and my concerns, a month later we started dating but this time wasn't like it was before. This love wasn't my fairy tale. I spent the next few months feeling like I wasn't enough. They had trauma and scars of their own that they had yet to heal, and those wounds triggered me. I constantly felt like I was competing to show them I was worthy of being loved, that I was worth the risk, and that I was a good girlfriend. I truly believe they just didn't know how to love me the way I needed. Not that they were unwilling, but had never been taught how, and while I was on my path of healing I couldn't be the one to teach them. After almost a year of seeing each other and months of trying to mend the broken, things ended.

Having only loved and been loved by two people, the attachments and idealizations I've created surrounding people are stronger than I'd like to admit. I, like a lot of people, tend to hang on to people and relationships far after their expiration date. Not because we hope they will change, but because we hope that love will overcome it all and sadly sometimes love isn't enough.

I wish I could say that healing heartbreak is easy, but there's no easy way to let go of someone you love. There's no timeline for the amount of time you should spend mourning them or the life you built together. Heartbreak has no rules. The only thing I do know is that each heartbreak has allotted me the opportunity for immense growth. My heartbreaks have been the catalysts in healing my wounds and traumas that were hidden deep beneath the wants and needs of my partners. People often times will tell me "don't worry time heals all wounds" but as time continues to pass I know they're wrong. Time doesn't heal all wounds, but it does change them. Eventually the heartbreak, betrayals, failures, and everything in between hurts less. You're able to look back and see the person and situation for what it was and appreciate the moments that you shared without such a bitter taste in your mouth. Sitting in the grief that comes from losing a partner and being able to reflect back on your time is an important part of the healing process, but don't get lost in the grief and spend a lifetime wishing for what once was. Heartbreak in the moment can be painful, but it's also a beautiful reminder of how deeply you're able to love and care for someone else.