To Anyone Who Has Just Suffered A Heartbreak

Are you still trying not to cringe, or suffer from another blow when you see his or her photo on your Facebook timeline? Spot and try to decipher one of their ambiguous tweets? Or worry that you’ll see a new face appear beside theirs, on your Instagram feed?

Do you not count the number of weeks, since that very last day? Do you not notice how their Whatsapp status blink from last seen to online, to last seen again, when the incessant missing becomes too much to bear? Do you crash at home on Friday nights, or indulge in the company of your friends, just to give your soul the therapy it needs? Or perhaps numb yourself from the missing piece of your heart, by filling it insouciantly with that sauvignon blanc or martini? Some very fine grapes and berries have died in the process, by the way.

You’ve long learned how to put on laughter and smiles, and you do it exquisitely well, except some nights, it’s just… unbearable, I know. Your phone is buzzing. Is it them? I guess your heart must have stopped.

Have you wondered what love really is? If, to love and being loved, is truly the essence of everything, then why does it have to hurt? Is love indeed esoteric and untamable? Or will you say, Fuck love, I don’t believe in that anymore?

Do you let love in, only to allow it to consume your life’s entirety? Does love bring you happiness, only to leave behind dolor and pain? Happiness that is sowed in another person, an item of possession, or circumstance, is close to, but isn’t love.

Was it tears or the goodbye, a place or song that only the both of you knew? Was it their favorite food? Or pet peeves that made you laugh? Was it something they said that was deeply etched, or the neighborhood where they lived that you had grown to fall in love with, a little too soon?
Some memories fade, while others stay. You will eventually learn to trust your memory to forget, because it’s remembering that takes effort after all. Every single person who has walked into your life teaches you something about yourself, leaving a little of them in you even after they’re gone.

If it was truly meant to be, you wouldn’t be here, sitting on these bits and pieces that don’t fit. Maybe it wasn’t your fault; but a relationship that doesn’t stay teaches you what you don’t need.

You had your chance to make a difference. You’ve tried your best, but that doesn’t make it any easier, or alleviate the pain. Want to know a little secret? The purpose of pain is neither to make us sad, nor it is to give us big lessons on truths about love. It simply serves as a reminder.

You’ve probably struggled between thoughts on whether you should hold on or let go. You’re unsure if the ability to walk out of doors or hanging on is good or bad. Both take a great deal of courage, yet both are ironically, weaknesses. Maybe, just maybe, a different choice could alter your fate. Does keeping this still feel right to you? Does making that one more call or text feel like the right thing to do? A relationship needs work; it has to go through the test of time; one needs to fight for love — this, only you have the answer, and only the future can tell you whether you’re right or wrong.

How will your days go by after this one? Will there be bitterness or resentment left of it? Going back to friends from lovers may be out of the question. Yet, you’re not exactly strangers either. What awkward places love leaves us.

Perhaps acknowledging their presence is the wisest thing to do. You won’t appear novice; it shows that they no longer matter; and neither have you lost your memory to dementia. It makes look you ravishingly tall, classy, and in control.

A failed relationship is not akin to a written page of mistakes, which one simply tears away, sending it straight for the paper basket. It’s a chapter that will always remain that one can’t rewrite or erase. Though, you can always go on to pen down new ones.

Your source of happiness doesn’t lie with him or her; it’s what you give yourself. It’s in your hands. It’s your responsibility and ownership. That’s why it’s called your happiness. Once you truly understand that, you’ll never feel inadequate in the absence of someone who loves you, or build castle walls just to protect yourself. By virtue of that, it already makes you so much more attractive and desirable, on top of the amazing soul that you are.

Go out there, open your eyes, and marvel at the world like you’ve never before. Celebrate your brightest fireworks, as well as your heartbreaks. Every smudge and line writes the story; it’s yours. Glow with it. It’s what makes you beautiful, and what makes you, you. Learn to see beauty in the brevity of life’s moments; how things are never always permanent, but change as they please; and these moments shall always live in you. You’ll be surprised by how much more beauty you can see, how much more endearing the world sees you, and I promise, you’ll never look at love the same way again.

Have heart.