THE LAST HEARTBREAK

The last time my heart was broken, after I'd stopped crying for days and had given up all hope for a miracle that we'd ever get back together (even if I was the one who, technically,  let go), I finally pulled myself together and said "never again." And true enough, it was. That must have been more than 15 years ago.

Since then I've had this ability to turn around and walk away before the throbbing turns into a deep ache, before the pain can begin to overwhelm and control me. I can't quite explain it, but it's like a switch abruptly turns off; all of a sudden my brain takes over and pushes my heart aside, rolls up its sleeves, declares "enough," and gets to business. It's a resolve that always seems to come out of nowhere, and when it does it feels utterly cold and unyielding; at times I no longer feel quite like myself.

My ex-husband used to say that what he loved most about me was my heart. Perhaps it's only appropriate that when I left him it was because my head told me so. I still remember the exact moment I made my decision that July afternoon: I felt absolutely no emotion -- no bitterness or hatred, not even fear. I never cried, not once, not even on the day I stood on the lawn and took one last look at the house I loved, the one I once turned into a home.

It's been so long since never became forever, but I can still remember clearly what it feels like when my heart breaks; if I think about it long enough I can still sense the tightness in my chest that radiates into an implosion inside my gut. I then put both my hands flat over where my heart is and press down to stop the ache, and then I think "Good, it's still there."

Comments

[Anna]

When I first experienced heartbreak ages ago, I made the opposite decision you did. I looked at how wonderful the relationship had been, and decided that it was worth the pain. So I gritted my teeth with the resolve that "this too, shall pass" and rode the pain through to the other side of what seemed forever. (Besides, there was a kind of morbid fun being the figure of such tragedy as I'd only read of in books. I was secretly a rather dramatic child.)

And later on I did it again. Whenever I fell in love, I made the conscious decision that I'd rather live with any pain that might come than never experience the exhilaration of the high of love.

And I've never regretted it.

[Gigi]

Anna - I'd rather be more like you for the same reasons you have. But perhaps too many heartbreaks just propelled me into survival mode. I don't know if it's been for the best, but I do know it's kept me intact since.