A Letter To My Future Broken Heart

Hello darkness, my old friend.

I am sorry to have to run into you like this. I know how much agony you must be in right now, and I am so sorry for that. The grief may seem insurmountable right now, but I assure you, you will scale this massif. You have done it before, and no matter how exhausted and defeated you may feel right now, you will do it again.

It may not happen today, nor is it likely to happen tomorrow. But you will start to feel better. No feeling is forever. The weight of this will stop crushing you one day. What now feels like like the walls of your chest are caving in will become a dull ache, and then one day, it will be gone. One day, it won’t hurt anymore. I hate to ruin the ending of the story for you, but you are going to be okay. That’s how every story ends anyway.

I know what you are saying. How can I, your younger, less mature, more naïve self possibly know this? How can I ever even begin to know what you are going through? You are in so much pain that it hurts to be awake. It hurts to move. I know. Trust me, sweetheart, I have been down this broken road. I have walked a mile in your shoes.

Let me tell you what I know.

You need to let go. Stop trying to control the situation. Put the cell phone down. Close the laptop. Put the iPad back in its case. (I’m hoping by this point in the future you have managed to get it fixed.) Take a deep breath and accept the fact that this relationship is broken. You cannot fix it. The more time you spend trying to pick up broken glass, the more you will cut yourself.

No matter what happened, the damage you allow to be done to yourself from here on out is solely your responsibility. Spare yourself the extra pain and Band-Aids. There is nothing you can do except step away. But he’s worth it, you’ll think. Is he though? Is this relationship is worth sleepless nights, tears, hours spent distracted from the beauty of the world around you? Trust me. We’ve been here before, and it is not. No relationship is worth your self-respect.

Let us take a moment and think about what led you to this moment.

Remember the time you dated the guy with the mullet? What about the one who didn’t walk you home and a stranger ended up peeing on you? How about the guy with the addiction to fast food and pornography? Or how about the two with strippers poles in their living rooms? Yes, dearest, I said two. You don’t always have the best judgment with it comes to dating, do you?

Take this time for yourself and think about what you really want. Stop trying to make square pegs fit in round holes. Deep down, this relationship was not built for the long hall because if it was, it would not be over.

You know that sometimes the flaws are not so gruesome or obvious. They are more subtle and complicated. The cuts were so small that you don’t even notice them until you were already bleeding out. This is the worst kind of pain. If this is what you are going through right now, please know that I am bleeding right alongside you. So are all of the many people who love and care about you. Do not keep this to yourself. Please reach out to them. They will, as they have faithfully before, hold you up because you are too fragile to stand on your own.

Although this anguish may have arrived more subtly, do not pretend that it can be repaired. Remember, you need to relinquish any sense of control you think you had in this relationship. After all, you didn’t have any control, and you need to acknowledge that. You were with a person who gave you the bare minimum to keep you holding on, to keep his side of the bed warm. You gave him your whole heart, and you barely got a space in his.
Is that what you deserve? (I hope, my future self, that the answer to that question is obvious.)

This person may have told you he was confused, that he didn’t know what he wanted. If only I could convince him, you think. You cannot. You will never succeed at such a futile endeavor. If you try to do this, what you will do is hurt yourself more. Please don’t do that. You cannot love someone enough to make them love you back. You cannot change a broken person. But you can take this time to change how you feel. Please, darling, I beg of you, spare yourself the added grief and do that instead.

I know it hurts and you’re sad. That’s okay. Let the sadness wash over you, but be cautious not to allow it to swallow you whole. I hope this gift was able to help you in some small way. I wish you the best of luck as you begin to heal. Do not think of this as an end, but rather, think of it as a beginning. For it is only through our trials and our grief that we discover who we are really meant to be.