The Power Of Heartbreak

Women are known for being on both ends of the sensitivity spectrum.

We are admired for strength but assumed to be weak. We are expected to hold weight upon our shoulders, but can’t complain about the heaviness. If you take a good look at the baggage piled on our bodies, besides life and work, men play an active role. This is not a story of men-shaming, but a story of how a woman’s heart is placed in the wrong hands, and still we are strong.

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I stepped in and out of a revolving door you call a relationship. I thought, three’s a charm, and carried a load of optimism with this third chance. Everyone deserves a second chance, everyone changes for the better, are things I retorted to my mind each time he asked to take me to dinner, every time he pulled up to my house in his seemingly-fancy car. Whenever I looked at his beard or heard his hearty laugh, I assumed he changed into a better person.

Random phone calls throughout the day randomly suggested different experiences to do together. Each discussion took away pieces of bricks from my wall to reveal my hidden self. He gave patience and waited for me to warm up to him and accept him back into my life. Picnics, wine dates, and walks through parks to see the sunset turn into blues and oranges, holding hands and kissing in the street; it was your typical romance movie.

I gave my trust to him, and I put my anxiety in his hands. This anxiety was left over from the previous two chances. Left over from disappearing acts, and not speaking to me. Anxiety I thought dissipated and rid itself of my body. But it crept back in like a disease. One of those diseases that do not show symptoms, but the episodes were horrendous.

I never suffered from anxiety besides when he strolled in and out my life.

No need for a full-hour conversation, but no type of check-in occurred. This cooked up the anxiety. I would get antsy and assume I was being left. From then, I would begin to calculate what I could have possibly done to be ignored or forgotten; almost in the sense of being abandoned. You don’t expect someone you care about deeply to desert you. Actually, you don’t expect someone who shows they care about you to desert you. The feeling drives deep to the bone, through the soul, and eats away. Another disease in which has no medication.

The only way to get rid of the feeling is for this person to come back. So, he would come back, but empty-handed.

No apology.

No explanation.

He just went about things as they were.

After the anxiety cooked up, simmered and boiled, my anger is ready for serving. He never ate my anger, however. He never tried to taste it or savor it to understand and appreciate where it came from or figure out its ingredients. He simply overlooked it and kept moving. The plate would go cold and stale, and I had no choice but to throw it away.

I did not realize throwing away my anger enabled his behavior. Sure, I nagged and commented on his ways, and I would get the same sob story of an apology. My eyes are rolling from east to west just thinking about them. But I kept pushing through and waiting on better days, which eventually came. But then the better days became fewer and fewer apart and his attention was harder to capture. Losing his job, getting his car broken into, and being low on cash, were bad things I assumed were tests to prove my loyalty. Despite buying little things here and there, offering positive thoughts and getaways, it boiled down to nothing.

All the nice gestures from my golden soul proved to be worth nothing. His kitchen, another version of Hell’s Kitchen, was filled with burning fire and sticky sweat. Tears shed from trying to spruce up the best meal. While my back was turned gazing at this stove of hope and desire, he walked down the opposite path toward someone else. What ignites the fire is not that she came along, but how he handled her entrance. He became distant with me, who has been standing here all along. My phone barely rang or blinked with a text. His consideration for my time weaned, and I caught myself wasting more and more.

Then he gently placed my anxiety into the oven and let it broil. He disappeared for a few days. When he decided to come back, the pet names were no more and he proceeded to blame his problems as a reason he could not continue forward with me. I reluctantly accepted his way, because, at this point, his attention was not on me anymore.

When things go wrong, you reason with your inner voice and assume your own verdict. You think of possibilities of what could, should, or would have happened. Then God serves you a big bowl of reality and shakes you out of this empty fantasy. All five stages of grief hit me within one day, sometimes even one hour. When I finally came to terms with my new status, a picture came out of nowhere and changed absolutely everything. Social media is the bearer of bad news.

He posted a picture of his presence with another woman.

When he did that, he had forgotten to take my anxiety out the oven, and let it cool. Instead, it was burning, crisping, and blackening into nothingness. That hurt was a strange type of pain; a pain that could have been prevented. One of those pains you watch unfold, but you continue to let the hurt happen because you know or think it will stop on its own.

I felt as though my heart ran out of options.

Having someone take the rug from underneath you is traumatizing. Breaking up is hard, moving on and letting go is even harder. When our heart is smeared between the fingers of someone we love, we see ourselves die a little. Being at my lowest only gave me time and strength to evolve into an enhanced me. I took time to understand how I love, and appreciate my efforts, not as a defeat, but as a success because I know I’m not a walking robot and I know I will not waste away with the same undeserving person. It’s not easy to know your heart is big and open only to receive crumbs.

The best thing is never letting these upsets ruin you.

It’s only moving you closer to someone who deserves you.

We weave in and out of relationships, lusting and hoping for the admirable love you see posted all over social media. Though this is an absolute desire, always remember your time is precious. It’s natural to give a loved one chances because we care, we see their potential to be great, but we have to take back our control by putting a halt to a diabolic cycle. This type of relationship showed me there are too many men out there willing to treat me three times better with just one chance.

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The power of heartaches builds up as the number of second chances increases. Third time is a charm, but the fourth and eighth is not going to make you feel better in the long run. I eventually learned from heartbreak that it is okay to walk away from an unhappy situation because my sanity and love are worth so much more. We all go through relationship struggles, but you learn over time that you have to fix the struggle within you first to attract the love you ultimately deserve.

The key is time: allow yourself to feel, to accept, and to heal.

As the hate melts away, you begin to appreciate the new person unraveling. Like a butterfly, shedding its cocoon, you emerge better than you were before, and you are able to navigate the next relationship with more clarity and discernment.

Whiskey in a teacup, Nesstalgicc is a Brooklynite who enjoys all things organic, social, and soothing. An avid reader and writer with a knack for being outspoken and straightforward.