A HEART STILL BEATING IS A HEART UNBEATEN

I know. It's been a long time since I've posted anything on this blog. That doesn't mean I haven't been writing, elsewhere, about things other than heartbreak. But as I mentioned in my last post, my heartbreak saga has taken a legal turn, and although there has definitely been progress in that area, I'm not at liberty to divulge details concerning the...well...details of the situation. However, I am free to offer you an update on the emotional progress I've made since I last typed the word "heartbreak" for public consumption. So....ready? Good! Here goes...

I feel better. Not great, mind you. Not amazing. Not even what you might call normal (if there is such a thing). But I have definitely taken enough steps toward the light at the end of the tunnel to have reached the startling conclusion that there actually is life after love. (Are you listening, Cher?) It's been a hell of a long haul, though, fraught with fresh hurts along the way, not to mention the occasional step backwards toward the abyss of despair into which I plummeted after my ex ended our relationship and returned to the woman who he once claimed made him so unhappy. It's been four months since the emotional apocalypse that left me so crushed and broken-hearted that there were times when I honestly would have preferred to die (painlessly) rather than face another day draped in the sadness that I allowed to envelope me. But in those four months, in which I must have cried enough tears to fill an ocean, I learned a few things about myself which, if not original or profound, are at least as important as the fact that I gave my love to a man who accepted it, enjoyed the benefits that came with it, and then tossed it away as though it were nothing when it no longer suited his purpose. And just what are those things, you ask? Well, calm down and I'll tell you.

First of all, I learned that I am stronger than I thought I would ever be in a situation like this one. When my husband left me four years ago, after twenty-five years of marriage, for a woman he claimed was his "soulmate", I thought I would die. It was a total blindside, a sucker punch to the solar plexus that left me gasping for breath and so disoriented that I flew straight to England, where I had once been happy in my youth, and where I proceeded to squander nearly every penny of my divorce settlement in a misguided effort to assuage the emotional pain. When I finally returned to the States, still broken-hearted and financially broke as well, my friends took numbers lining up to chastise me for my foolishness while at the same time confessing that they weren't sure they could ever have survived such an emotional blow. It was a pretty dismal period in my life, and finding myself both an example of bad judgment and an object of pity didn't help matters. But I managed to pull myself together enough to go on with life. I mean, what choice did I have? And, of course, if you've read my earlier posts on this blog, you know that it was while I was stumbling around in a state of depression and acute remorse that I met and fell in love with the man who would deliver the next blow to my poor, duct-taped heart. But see, that's the thing. I recovered from that first blow, and, from where I sit at the moment, it looks as though I just might recover from this one, too. I'm not saying I'm "over it." Hell, I'll probably never be over it completely. I'm still angry, hurt, and sad, and there are days (and just as many nights) when I still can't believe that he left me the way that he did. But he did leave me the way that he did. Which pretty much means that I have two choices. I can waste even more time wallowing in despondency and despair over a man who was never worthy of me to begin with, or I can do my best to put him behind me and move forward into the next phase of my existence. I choose to move forward. I already have...somewhat. Believe it or not, there are days (and nights) when I actually find myself looking forward to the future...a future in which his figure doesn't even figure...and, for a woman who spent at least two of the last four months convinced that she would never feel anything but sadness again, that's saying something.

The second thing I've learned is that being dumped by the man I loved doesn't mean that I am unworthy of being loved. Don't get me wrong. I'm nowhere near ready for another relationship. And although I did agree to go out for coffee recently with a man who made it clear that he found me "interesting", I'm still too tender to even consider dating on a regular basis (not to mention that I spent the entire time rehashing the details of my heartbreak, which, despite the perfunctorily compassionate comments he offered in return, probably made me a little less "interesting" to him by the time we finished our second cup of coffee). But even so, I've started to shake off that awful sense of being "nothing" because someone I loved chose to continue his life without me. That was one of the hardest parts of being dumped so suddenly by a man who I had made the central focus of my life. All at once, there I was, just me, alone, unattached, a solitary entity in a world in which most people define themselves by their emotional relationships to other people. Sure, I still had my children, and my friends, but my children and my friends all have partners and significant others. The things they do, the plans they make are all colored and shaped by their attachments to those other people. To be a woman with no such attachment, with no one else's needs or desires to consider when making the daily decisions of life, no one to whom I belong...well, it's a little disconcerting at this stage in my life. I mean, it's one thing to be thirty-four and single. It's a whole other sticky (and slightly icky) ball of wax to be fifty-four and on your own. But alone or not, I am still the person I was when I met him, and that person is as worthy of love now as she was then. The twist is that next time...if there is a next time...I won't make the mistake of settling for less than I deserve.

And that brings us to the third thing I've learned since first signing my name in the over-flowing guest book at Hotel Heartbreak. Hold on to your hats. It's a biggie. It's...(cue drum roll)...the astonishing fact that hearts can't really be broken. I know! Major revelation! Not to mention one that is completely incompatible with the concept of a blog devoted to heartbreak and those who carelessly break those aforementioned hearts. But it's true. I mean, sure, when someone you love says good-bye and leaves you lying in the dust like yesterday's roadkill, it hurts like hell. And in the most extreme cases (like mine), it really does feel as though that vital organ beating inside your chest has been seriously compromised in a physical and possibly life-threatening way. On my worst days, I was in so much pain that it took every ounce of energy I possessed to put enough words together to form a coherent sentence. There were times when the emptiness inside of me felt so vast and overwhelming that I wasn't even sure that I possessed a heart anymore. Wracked with grief and despair, I was convinced that, even if I did still have a heart beating somewhere inside of me, it was probably so scarred and bruised and battered that it was only a matter of time until it succumbed to its wounds and gave up the ghost for good. But guess what? I was wrong. All the classic symptoms of heartbreak...the heavy, choking sensation at the base of your throat, the absence of anything even approaching an appetite, the endless flow of tears that makes you feel as though you're living through your own personal tsunami....are definitely forces with which to be reckoned. But even in the midst of all that, even when you're at your absolutely lowest point, so low that you feel as though you're crawling on your hands and knees even when you're walking upright...even then, your heart is still intact. It's not really cracked, it's not actually bleeding, and the duct tape you imagine covering its myriad holes is not necessary. And that's because your heart...my heart...everyone's heart...is stronger than than anything that life happens to throw at it. Stronger than disappointment, stronger than sadness, stronger than that wretched movie reel of memories looping endlessly inside your head.

It's your heart, and even if you were foolish enough, or careless enough, or trusting enough to offer it up to someone else for safekeeping, it still belongs to you. It may have been abused, it may have been neglected, disrespected, and unfairly used, and it may have come back to you in need of some extra care and attention to make up for the rough treatment it suffered prior to the transition, but it came back whole and still beating and every bit as solid as it was before. And even if you still hurt, it will keep on beating, and as long as it does, you will never be beaten. You've heard the song a thousand times. Probably hated it more every time you heard it (I know I did). But as corny as the lyrics are, they're true. Your heart will go on...and on...and on. And that means that you...and I...will, too.

Remember...Das Beste kommt nocht!