730-some days into the descent into madness…

Oh, I’ve had my share of broken hearts. Oh, yeah.  There was the broken heart from the huge crush in high school who married my best friend from the fourth grade.  There was the broken heart of the first serious boyfriend who made me laugh 50% of the time and beat my ass the other 50%  there was the broken heart from the guy who was madly in love with me, offered me everything, but I just didn’t feel the same in return.  There was the broken heart from the father of my children who cheated on me when I was three months pregnant while I longed to be Martha Stewart for him. there was the broken heart of the husband who I wanted to save from drug addiction, who told me I was his angel and without me he’d never survive.  Then cheated on me, while running to me at all hours of the night and day telling me he’d do “anything” to keep me and prove his love was true.  There was the broken heart at my daughter’s first “boyfriend”.  There was the broken heart from the loss of a beloved pet who went through my entire first pregnancy as my best and only friend.  There was the broken heart when I demolished my dream car.  There was the broken heart at the realization that my mother had always disliked me.  there was the broken heart at the guy I thought was everything who waited three years to tell me he’d always loved me, when I was engaged to be married to the drug addict.  There was the one from the guy I dated on and off for four years, leaving me every other month for his ex girlfriend, meanwhile telling me daily he’d never been happier or more in love than he was with me.   there was the broken heart at being mugged and sexually traumatized by a stranger in a baseball field right next to my house.  There was the one that came from realizing my best friend was spreading hateful lies about me. (There were several of these through the years!)  there were the broken hearts that came from breaking another’s heart in a way that I never intended; that comes from realizing you were just trying so hard to be in love with that person, but could not do it.

 But never has my heart been thoroughly and completely demolished until it had a sincere investment in another person.  with the completeness of finally trusting someone to love you for you.  the person you show yourself to naked and vulnerable, holding your breath at each removal of the masks you’ve created to protect yourself from the coldness of cruel judgment and the humiliation of unacceptable.  That one person you just bare it all and pray for the best.  When you realize that you’ve never fully known or understood just who you were till the moment you shared it all with this other human being and prayed with all your might that he would be able to see you clearly and love you for it and in spite of it.  The one who makes promises you really want to and do believe. 

That person who when once you sneezed, his eyes shone in adoration as he exclaimed, “That’s it!  That’s why I love you so much!  That is the cutest sneeze I’ve ever heard!”  The person who when you cried over your cat that died four years earlier, his eyes ached with the desire to take away your pain.

That is the person who is really going to wreak holy havoc on your heart and soul.  Whose chance meeting will alter your existence forever.  Who has been given every weapon in the universe with which to shred your soul, toss a little bbq sauce on it, throw the whole mess on a bun and eat it, smiling with satisfaction and looking at you the entire time going, “What?  I’m just having a sandwich for God’s sake!  It’s not the end of the world.  You’re going to be just fine.”

This is the man who can shake up your life and laugh when you look disoriented, fall down, and beg for mercy.  He’ll hold out his hand to help you up, look at you with eyes full of love and what-used-to-be.  This is the Lucy to your Charlie Brown.  He can hold out that football a million times, swearing he’s really not going to yank it away this time.  And you, who was never the smartest egg on the planet, but certainly not the most ignorant ever, will confidently back up 500 yards, take a running start, stare at the ball with mighty intent, and BAM.  You go flying through the air, fall on your back so hard the wind is knocked out of you, eyes tearing up, unable to move from the pain, while he runs off with Lionel saying, “I can’t believe Charlie fell for it again.  How could anyone be so stupid?  He knows I’m going to yank the ball away.”  Only he’s screaming this over the sirens that Peppermint Patty had to call because Charlie is on the ground unconscious and rolls her eyes, annoyed that he has to scream to be heard because Charlie has made such a ridiculous fuss.

This is the man who can alter your chemical brain makeup.  Who will make you look at yourself and wonder, “Who in the hell are you anyway?”  Where did you come from?  I don’t like you much, so please go away.

 You will try anything to get this man out of your system.  And kick yourself on a daily basis for your own refusal to see and accept the senselessness that occurs daily.  You will beg God for mercy each night as you ache to remember how it felt to actually sleep through the night.  You will drink yourself silly and say and do things that you just can’t believe you had in you.  you will turn mean and bitter, unable to trust another soul in the planet, questioning the very God whom you pray to for mercy.  You will swear for no reason.  Sleep deprived and mildly insane, you will rack your brain for understanding of yourself and this sudden stranger.  You have no idea how it’s possible to still feel an ounce of love for this cruel pseudo human being, who is actually the devil wearing your ex boyfriend’s body around like a luxurious fur coat.  You will throw holy water on him in the middle of the night, half joking, and half really expecting it to  burn his skin.  You will smoke three packs of cigarettes a day until your breathing becomes challenging.  You will sink into the depths of despair when he utters the words, “I still love you.  Nothing compares to what we shared.  I trusted you!  I wanted to take care of you for the rest of our lives.”  And then you will  hit the ground with a thunderous thud when he looks at you blankly the next day and says, “I don’t remember saying that.  I’ve told you I can’t trust you anymore.  it’s over.  Move on”,  stifling an annoyed laugh at your ridiculously persistent innocence.  It can’t be his fault you’re so stubbornly naive!

You will learn meditation to try to escape from the undocumentable pain of your broken heart.  Because you ache for silence in the mind and a glimmer of peace in your soul,  You will practice self affirmations of strength and wholeness, spoken like spiritual mantras that burn into your mind.  You will eat like every meal is your last.  And starve yourself for days because of the chronic nausea that has taken over.  You will cringe that you are now too thin and hate your body for getting too fat.  You will write thousands of letters until you get it said just right.  You will write lustful poems and stories of happiness.  You will drive every last friend you have away because you’re afraid to believe in anything and yet are so needy for hope that it’s painful.  You will exercise to cut back on the insane amounts of cigarettes you’ve been smoking since the nightmare began.  You will shop for new clothes as if they’re the answer to your existence.  You will look at old pictures of yourself and wonder where that girl was when you just looked in the mirror.  Where did those wrinkles come from?  Those scars that scream of your sky-rocketing stress level and the chronic mind-bombs that have kept you from sleeping for weeks.  Or has it been months now?  You will stare into your own eyes, desperately trying to find that flicker of light you had since birth; the light that no broken heart, no life disappointment, no betrayal you’ve ever suffered has ever fully extinguished.  You will be mad enough to swear at the moon and curse the rain.  The next day you will beg their forgiveness and beg them to understand your insanity and plead for their mercy for your desperation.  You will read your horoscope as if it’s the last word of Christ.  You will go on dates that fill you with guilt the way water saturates a cotton ball, then avoid phone calls like pushy telemarketers because you’ve run out of excuses as to why you can’t go to dinner that night  Do they not understand that you have letters to write and ritual sacrifices to make?  Did they not see the trail of blood dripping from the gaping rip in your heart as you calmly smiled through dinner?  How could they miss it?  You will make promises to the sun that you will break the minute he shows up at your door, holding that football and smiling like nothing in the world has ever happened.  And you will kick yourself for your ignorance, and refuse the ambulance that’s offered.  Why let them patch you up when you’re just going to let him rip those stitches out the next day?  Let’s at least not waste anyone else’s time.

This is the broken heart that can kill you.

7/20/08 – Amazing update:  AHA!!!  Here is a link that reinforces my post here….

http://dyslexia.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/emotional-pain-can-really-hurt-complex-grief/

Wow….I “knew” this, but I did not know this.  I am validated at last:-)