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How to Say Goodbye and Heal the Heart


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Posted (edited)

I'm not really sure how I'll start this post or how to keep from rambling, but I'll do my best.

 

I'll first start off by saying that no matter how specific or special or particular a situation is, a broken heart is a universal condition that has been felt by the first humans onward. Although every breakup is different and every relationship is unique, the pain of dealing with the loss of someone we once loved is a universal condition. We'll all share in that pain at some point in our lives.

 

Whether you have been with them for months or for years, there may come a time when they choose to leave you for another and you will feel crushed, alone and abandoned.

 

I wish I could wave my hand and make the pain go away, but that pain is something we all must bare to learn more about life, ourselves and the relationship that is now in our past. Time is a curious thing, because the present itself always slips into the past, and when we least expect it, day can turn to night and the one we once loved can suddenly change and look at us differently -- speak to us differently. The softly spoken, "I love you," from yesterday can suddenly become the, "I don't want to be with you anymore" of today. It is something impossible to reconcile, but also something absolutely necessary to eventually accept.

 

We'll ask ourselves so many questions. What was the moment that became the straw that broke the camel's back? We had so many amazing moments together -- how could they walk away from this amazing bond? How could this person that I trusted with my heart and soul suddenly change so quickly towards me?

 

The ability to understand these sudden changes can be monumental or next to impossible. There will be so many unanswered questions and so many strings left dangling. There will be so many moments unexplored and so many avenues left abandoned. And all the while, we'll keep shifting our thoughts to the past -- which could have just been hours or days ago, and constantly ask ourselves, "how is this possible? This isn't possible. It makes no sense."

 

As easily as love can ignite, it can extinguish. The most risky venture we will ever undertake in life is to open our hearts to another. We can make financial decisions and loose money -- but we can eventually recover from a financial lose. We can injure ourselves and eventually heal. What we cannot do so easily is put our hearts into someone else's hands and have them drop it and walk away. The emotional pain that we experience from love lost will follow us for our entire lives. We can let go and move on, but those memories will always trail us and tug at our hearts when we least expect it -- far after we've healed. It becomes a part of who we are and it isn't something we can choose to forget, ignore or disregard. Our only option is to accept the pain and integrate the experiences and memories into our soul. That pain becomes a facet of our life forever.

 

There was a time -- a day -- before we knew this person. We were a person with goals, ambitions and passions before we met them. At some point, we did meet them and the relationship progressed. It could have started as friends or the spark could have ignited quickly enough to progress straight to lovers. We shared moments with them that we never shared with another person. We walked down secret alleys that we never shared with others. They knew things about us that no one else ever knew -- and we knew things about them that were precious and hidden from others.

 

But at some point, they put our hearts down and walked away with another. It was an earthquake to our lives of unbelievable proportions. And we would be forced to experience the continued aftershocks from that earthquake for days, weeks, months and years after that earthquake. We would run back and forth across the memories, trying to understand just what exactly occurred, what went wrong and how something so amazing and precious could dissolve so quickly right before our eyes.

 

The memories of the past would haunt us. Dreams of what were would slip into our nights. There is no parallel in our lives to sharing such a commitment with another and having our dreams and future with that person pulled away from beneath our feet.

 

Our first breakup always seems like the worse -- and then we get older and more mature and the stakes become higher. We become more refined in our ideals and ideology, and when we find someone who shares our views and passions later in life, the breakups from those relationships become even harder. It would seem more rational that it gets easier with time, but as our hearts get bigger, we constantly put more on the line and the eventual loss becomes that much greater.

 

Yet, through every relationship that fails, we're constantly left at square one -- with our lonesome selves. What did we learn? What didn't we learn? The questions become more numerous while the answers become more complex. They become more complex because we, as individuals, become more complex. We constantly refine our world view.

 

What is a relationship? Why do we even need them? Is it only a biological drive to procreate and spread our genes? Is it something more that we need to explore so we can better understand human relationships? Do they exist so that we may learn more about ourselves?

 

The sense of profound loss from a relationship failed seems to stretch much deeper and much further than a simple biological drive. To be human and to share the intellectual passions, the pursuit of family and the drive to find enrichment as a couple seems to transcend simple biological impulses. There is a spiritual component that seems very real to us. In sharing a relationship with another, not only are we exploring aspects of ourselves through the eyes of another, but we also embark on spiritual enrichment. Relationships, in some way or another, bring us closer to whatever metaphysical component that sits at the root of our being. In some aspect or another, whether it can be reduced into words, sentences or stories, a relationship brings out parts of us that are beyond comprehension or description.

 

Whereas the act of loving itself may be akin to music, the act of loving someone in particular could be compared to a specific song. Music itself will always exist, but a particular song is special, unique and cannot be reproduced by another. If that song were to silence and never be heard again, it would be impossible to replicate the emotions, expressions and tempo from that particular song to the soul. Although another song might make us feel similar, no song could ever replicate the exact and subtle nuances of that other song lost.

 

Where do we go to listen to that song when it has been dissolved? In memories, the song fades. In the soul, the song wades. In the heart, the song echoes. But the substance is lost, the meaning obscured and the passion deafened.

 

We'll suffer too many silenced songs throughout our lives. We'll collect the sheet music of what could have been in our souls. What we are today will forever be different from who we were before the song first played. It is only human to want to stretch out and experience infinity -- to embrace the moment and make it last forever. We're temporal beings locked in a world with beginnings and ends. We don't want to let go of something precious even after it has begun to rust.

 

We're all searching for meaning in a world that is mostly lost. We're all struggling to find paths in a forest of dusty roads. We're all trying to keep the moment alive forever when time itself keeps pushing in two different directions.

 

So in the end, the next time you find yourself in a moment you want to last forever, you had better embrace it and ask yourself if forever is really necessary when you have the moment in your hand.

Edited by DenverBachelor
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