The Heartbreak Project

I'm taking a break from packing up my apartment (sob, sob, sob,) to share this with you, because I think it's remarkably important.

This is one of the most amazing things I have seen recently.

I foresee great things happening with this project. Around the time you reach a certain age or certain number of relationships, everyone has a heartbreak story. Some people find it cathartic to share it. Some never would dream of it. Some keep it short and sweet. I'm a big fan of the six-word stories, so I'll keep my short, not so sweet, and condensed. I wrote the following for another great Facebook group started by the lovely Alli called "I Dated A Douchebag."

The Three Douchebags:
Story #1: Six months of catering. He cheated.
Alternate ending: He's married, kids now; secretly gay.

Story #2: Always, "Maybe later, baby." Never happened.

Story #3: Love. He left; disappeared. Thoroughly abandoned.

This last one is my personal heartbreak story. When I was a freshman in college, I shacked up with a senior. And then I fell in love for the first time. I can't tell you why-- he wasn't an exceptional guy in any way; in fact, I recognized this about him on a daily basis. Maybe it was just time for me. Anyway, I fell in love, and he graduated, left, moved back home, and completely washed his hands of me. There were no calls. No emails. No communication whatsoever. Witness Protection would have been proud. It was as if a friend you saw every day was suddenly not there, and you had know idea why. It was like missing my left arm. Even after he got arrested and I left a message asking if he could please let me know he was ok, I heard nothing. Nothing. This has resulted in some abandonment issues. I am terrified of being left this way again. I am terrified that any given day, the calls will stop; the communication lines, always tenuous with me in the first place, will break down; someone will have upped and moved away on me, either physically or metaphorically; that the places I once saw someone in will be empty.

After an entire summer and fall, an ocean of tears, hundreds of pages of writing, and countless hundreds of dollars spent smoking myself into an unfeeling oblivion, I woke up one morning completely free of him. Just as quickly as I fell into love, I fell out of love with him. It felt like the moon had suddenly stopped orbiting around the sun, and snapped off into deep space. In the end, I don't regret any of it: I don't regret taking that insane leap and falling in love for the first time; I don't regret what I learned about myself through the pain and the smoke and the writing; I don't regret equally ignoring him for the past year now that he's tried getting back in touch with me. From an utterly unremarkable relationship, I gained some truly remarkable knowledge. I feel; I love; I am.

And so, the (heart)beat goes on.

XOXO