Gratitude for Heartbreak...

I know, really?  Yes, really!

I have had my share of break ups.  Mostly they were my decision to leave and so the whole breaking up process was not so bad.  I wanted in and then I wanted out.  And so I left.  I know, sounds callous.  And, it was.  I was not a good person to date back in the day.  I only wanted what I couldn’t have, then if I got it, I no longer valued the relationship or you.  Not really fun to admit, but, it is true.  And perhaps to some degree, I still am this way.  Always wanting something that is just out of reach.  I like to think I am done with all of that, but I am not sure.  Sometimes, I am delusional still, again.

I have only truly been heartbroken once.  He was it for me. I loved him with everything I had.  I can see now why it didn’t work out.  I know he was not, in fact, right for me.  I see why it ended.  And I guess, on the other side of it all, I am grateful it ended.  He saw what I refused to.  The love was there, but it lacked staying power.  Or rather, he lacked staying power.  He unwilling to do the work required to maintain that kind of all encompassing love.  I get it. I really do.  I am no longer angry at him for it all.

But at the time, I didn’t get it and I refused to accept it.  I didn’t do anything crazy (pride being an asset in this way) I kept my pain to myself for the most part.  I hiked and cryked (crying + hiking - yes I invented this word) and my friends and mom sure got an earful.  I am sure that I took my brother-friends, Patrick and Karl, on a tour of Erin’s broken heart when they happened to visit during this break up time.  I just couldn’t accept it.  I could not move on.  And I owed several amends to people I attempted to date too soon after.  I was not ready.  They were not him and so it tracked the only course it could, bad.

It would have been helpful if this break up was a one and done.  But it wasn’t.  We strung it out over a two year period.  Breaking up and getting back together.  The final blow coming in December of 2017, right after the Thomas Fire.  When life was all fucked up and a mess.  Well, I guess the universe felt like I should be too.  And I was.  Then the mudslide happened in January 2018.  And that only made my loss and heartbreak worse.

Actually, this blog was born out of pain I did not know what to do with. The woman he dated after me was SUPER pissed that I kept writing about him and all my pain and using his fucking name.  To her credit, she never reached out and told me so...he did years later when we were able to heal to a point where we are now friends.  Everyone holds their breath when I call us "friends" because they lived through other iterations of this “friend” thing with horrific results, for me at least.

But, I have healed to a point where I only feel the love for him now.  I loved him more than I have ever loved anyone and I can also see that he is not the guy for me.  He was in so many ways, but the few he wasn’t, vital and crucial to a lasting love affair.  And now, I am grateful to call him friend.  We talk football, kids, life, aging and the like.  Not often, but I know he is there if I ever need support, and he knows the same.

That particular love story came full circle.  It was the ONE, right up until it wasn’t. Then I spent the better part of five years attempting to get over it and him and failing pretty miserably.  I am not a person who commits easily, but when I do, fuck I am your person forever.  And so far, that has only happened once in my life and yes it is embarrassing that I did not feel that way about the man I almost married and the one I did.  I was not capable of that kind of love at that time.  Sad, but true.

So why the fuck am I grateful for heartbreak?

Well, for starters, because I got to know a whole new side of myself that was long absent or missing.  Being a flitty and flighty dating companion, I lacked depth and it wasn’t because I didn’t have it, I just didn’t want to share it with you.  I knew that my dating choices were poor.  I actually picked them BECAUSE they were poor choices.  I knew that I would never be challenged and the relationship would demand little from me. I could give a little and expect little.  It was kind of an even exchange.  Sort of. I mean, a bad deal all round, but it was what it was. There was no mystery or heavy investment. And I liked that.

I don’t know what I was trying to accomplish back then.  To get the whole real deal but offer very little, no risk for me really.  And that one heartbreak where I put all my cards on the table and pushed all my chips into the fray, and the resulting cluster fuck, was the reason I never did it before.  I was terrified of giving all of myself and then losing myself and him.  And of course, what you think about, you bring about.

So I am grateful for my broken, shattered heart because I needed to be cracked up and open.  I was imprisoned in a tight trauma induced lock down situation that I founded but then lost the key to release myself.  I needed that particular heart break to smash open the jail of my own making and release me finally.

I gained access to parts of myself I had never been introduced to before.  I did not hold it altogether all that well and cried myself to sleep more often than I would like to admit.    I cried in the shower, the trails, my car.  I was angry, sure, but I was also bereft and despondent.  And I guess, looking back now, I needed to feel those feelings of loss and longing.  I needed the full experience of those emotions. I need permission to feel all of that and heartbreak was the only way that was going to happen.

And a surprising and wonderful thing happened for me and to me during this whole relational debacle...I grew up.  I changed.  I gained access to parts of myself that I didn’t previously have access to.  My pain increased but while that was going on, I was also gaining a deeper and more pervasive access to my capacity for joy, love and living.  I didn’t see that coming!

But it did.  I risked it all and I lost it all.  And somehow in the process of all of that I gained greater access to myself.  Parts of me that I did not know or understand.  And I only got those things, things that I can’t imagine living without today, because my heart was shattered into a million pieces and I had to spend the next five or so years putting myself and my shredded heart back together again.

So, yes, I am grateful for the heartbreak.  It was my becoming, like so many hard things in my life.  The pain I could not avoid became the foundation of a new life that was greater than the one I lost in all that breaking.

I really wish I learned the same kind of shit through accumulation and love and commitment, but I am just one of those people who learns best through subtraction.  I learn by loss.  And that seems to be my best and most stable teacher, God Dammit.  But it is and I have come to accept it.

I am a more whole person today because of that one pervasive, life altering, heart rendering loss.  I gained access to parts of myself previously unknown and lost to me.  And so today, I am so grateful for it all.  To him, for those amazingly life affirming times with him, for the loss of him, for the absence of him today.  I am grateful for all of it.  It was magic, right up until it wasn’t.  And then it was a sea of despair that left me stranded and lost for years. But like so many other similar experiences in my life, it became my proving ground.  The place where I didn’t capsize, I found my way, despite a true and honest desire to just fucking quit.  I didn’t.  And I haven’t.

I do not know if I have another love story in me.  I really don’t.  I hope so, well, at least sometimes I want that.  Other times, I am just happy to have survived it all and really enjoy my peaceful and wonderful life without a partner, a man.

The loss of him and all our relationship promised was life changing, and today, I bask in the glory of all that was and all that happened and all that I became because of it.  I wouldn’t change a single, motherfucking thing.

Again, still...

I am grateful for

A lovely day at home yesterday

Napping and lounging with the cats

Fireplaces

Candles

Hygge

A peaceful heart

Not wishing for my life to be other than how it is in this moment

My new HVAC system

Accomplishing goals that were set so many years ago

Girlfriends

Long chats

Snuggling with Grace