A Dirge For My Broken Heart

I know it felt like the end of the world. You felt like you would never be happy again, never be whole again. But it gets better. You will forget about all the pain he caused you and you will remember what it feels like to be happy again. One day you will feel all the weight of the sadness lift, and you will love again. You will let someone else in, slowly at first, and then all at once. You will do it, knowing there’s a chance this might end badly too, but you have to hope that it won’t. You will jump in with both feet, not dipping one toe at a time because that’s the only way to do it right. You know you had to have every fiber of your being ripped to shreds, so you’d appreciate it all the more when someone patched you up again. I know you thought that this time was different. And maybe it was. Maybe this was the most real thing you’d felt in a really long time. But that doesn’t mean it’s the last real thing you’ll ever feel.

You’re never prepared for a moment like that — when it changes so suddenly. It never gets easier each time around. One day you’re happy and carefree, and the next you’re wondering how things got so bad, so fast. But that doesn’t mean you stop trying. The hardest part is getting used to the idea that there will now be this huge, gaping hole in your life. The problem with happiness is that its a drug. Once you’ve known it, nothing else will do. When the happiness that you had gotten addicted to is gone, you will have to learn to deal with the withdrawals from going cold turkey. But you will find something else that brings you joy. Something else to fill the void. Hopefully that something else will be healthy. Hopefully, it will be a something else and not a someone else. Because giving another human being the sole responsibility of your happiness is the worst thing you can do. Derive your happiness from other things and other people, so that in the event that it all goes to shit, you don’t come crumbling down like a house of cards. Don’t bring down those around you as you fall. Some days will be better than others, but take it in your stride.

I think the worst part of it all is realizing that you bear no ill will despite it all. Despite all the pain and hurt, you know that you could never wish harm. There is no real winner here. You want the other to find happiness. Even if that means you won’t be there to witness it. And perhaps that is the litmus test that tells you how real it was, at least for you. The acceptance comes when you least expect it to. On a day when you seem to be at peace with all your demons. The feeling will slowly creep in. The finality will ring resoundingly in your ears. It will grow to a deafening decibel. And then as insidiously as it started out, it will abruptly stop. In the aftermath of the maddening silence, you will take a deep inhale. And it will sink in. Nudge its way into you, and nestle in your heart. It’s over. There is no more of this story left to be written. No prologue. No credit role. Just blank pages and black screens.

I think that somewhere along the way we forget that its okay to let go. We keep holding onto things that were never meant to be held that tight. And like grains of sand, the harder we try holding on, the more it slips away from us until our own fingernails are digging into bleeding palms. I think that maybe you are the only one who can give yourself the permission to let go. And that coming from anyone else is pointless until you are ready. But give yourself time. Trying to rush the process is futile. We all heal in different ways and no one else can know when its time, you are the only one who knows when you’re ready.

So dear broken heart of mine, I’m burying you today with the hope that from this soil that I have interred you in, you will grow into something beautiful. I hope that you grow to be a tall, strong Oak and you spread your branches far. Flower, and let the beauty of those flowers bring joy to those around you. Bear the most robust fruit you are capable of and let those around you enjoy every bite. Embrace the circle of life, because where one thing ends another one begins. But for now, this is me bidding you adieu. There is no place for you right now, all you’re doing is holding me back. This is not goodbye for good. We will see each other again, but for now, I need to bury you. I need to let you go so that the next time we see each other —we’re both in a better place.

 

To The Guy I Never Called Back

Dear Guy I Never Called Back,

Please know, it was not to hurt you. I meant you no harm, I bore you no ill will. It wasn’t something you did, or said. In fact, it was what you didn’t.

Perhaps it was condescending of me to assume I knew what was best for you. But in my defense, I thought it would be less messy this way. I figured you’d get the hint after one too many a text went unanswered. But you were persistent, and I admire that. But then the phone calls started. And those went unanswered as well. I had to block your number and then remove you from social media. You left me with little choice.

It baffles me how we could both be on such completely different pages, were we not at the same date? You assumed I’d agree to see you again, but I made no promises. I owed you nothing after just one date. I just decided it was best we went our own ways.

Almost two months later you express your disappointment in me. I empathize with your need for closure, but I can’t say I agree that you were entitled to it. Time moves quickly and leaves behind those who don’t move with it.

I guess you could say it was cruel to leave you dangling on a thread of hope, but let’s be honest — would you rather that I had been blunt and told you how rude and inconsiderate you were that day?

That being said, I still hope you find what you’re looking for. You had big things planned for the future, I hope that one day they come to fruition. I hope that our encounter left you with something other than a bitter aftertaste, I hope that you took something good away, and most of all — I hope you treat the next girl better.

Signed,

The Girl Who Never Called You Back

Black Rabbit Holes

It’s easy to lose yourself in an ocean of diarrhea that is the overwhelming population of New York City.

There’s a reason why people come here to submerge themselves in an endless abyss, where there’s no way out to be found. Sometimes there’s just no turning back. I suppose that’s the appeal that this enchantress holds for all those who fall under her spell.

New York is the girlfriend that will make you fall in love, right before she rips out your heart and breaks your spirit. 

I’m on the edge of falling in, and what scares me isn’t that there’s no returning. What scares me is that I don’t want to look for a way out. I want to fall in, and once I do — I may find that I actually like it. I enjoy the feeling of being consumed, swallowed whole by a culture that embraces the lost and the bereft. The hope is that you’ll find yourself amongst the chaos. It’s a gamble that may not pay off. In fact, it may even drive you further down that chute.

But you see, that’s not how I was raised. I was raised to be responsible. To think of consequences. But spontaneity comes easy to me. I am reckless by nature and once I let myself give in to it there is no stopping the black rabbit hole I will fall into.

So here I am. Ready to crawl into non-existence.

Starving Artists

A happy, conflict-free life is the worst thing that can happen to a writer. There’s a reason why artists are called starving (it’s not just because we’re broke and without a penny to our names) — it’s because we’re starving for something to feed on, to draw from, something to mould into our own.

We need fuel, sustenance, energy, inspiration; whatever you want to call it. But it is vital for our existence, for the existence of any art form. Something needs to start a fire, there must be a little spark to get things going before the world can be set ablaze and amazed. It is believed that Leonardo da Vinci recalls a significant moment from his childhood when the tail feathers of a kite brushed against his face — this he claims was an omen — one that possibly led to his interest and experimentation with aerodynamics. While I can’t say that I can recall a similar moment from my childhood, inspiration does often hit when you least expect it to, and more often than not, at the most inconvenient times. Inspiration is like one of those friends you love, but they have an incredible propensity for showing up unannounced at your door with some life crisis or the other, the night before your big interview or final exam. Not that I’m saying this happened… but you get the gist.

Those who chase thrills — adrenaline junkies, have a lot in common with writers and artists. We chase a feeling, we need to ride on a high that isn’t always the most accessible, but we need it all the same, and there are no lengths that some will go to for it. Research has shown that gamblers and addicts light up in the same parts of the brain (I’m trying not to bring in the scientific jargon), and I have a sneaking suspicion that brain imaging performed on adrenaline junkies and artists would show similar results as well.

Most days I’m like a surfer looking for that perfect wave. Sometimes I find the sufficient inspiration needed, sometimes I come up empty handed. But when I do find that big one, I can ride on the high for days, sometimes weeks if it’s a really good one. But eventually, it does run out. And then I’m off again, looking for the next one. Each time hoping it will be better than the last. But over the years, I’ve come to realize that most people only get one or two big ones. So when the wave comes for you, you better not miss it. You need to either ride it or let it wash over you, but know that it may be a while before the next one.

I can keep going on and on about inspiration and my need for it, but in reality it’s not a prescribed formula that everyone can use. People find inspiration in different things, from the smallest details, to life-changing events. So here’s little something that I found a spark of inspiration in. Ben Marcus, a short story writer and creative writing professor at Columbia, whose work I became acquainted with fairly recently, uses a beautiful metaphor to express how he thinks of language and stories in his editor’s note for New American Stories. It goes a little something like this —

Language is a drug, but a short story cannot be smoked. You can’t inject it. Stories don’t come bottled as a cream. You cannot have a story massaged into you by a bearish old man. You have to stare down a story until it wobbles, yields, then catapults into your face. But as squirrely as they are to capture, stories are the ideal deranger. If they are well made, and you submit to them, they go in clean. Stories deliver their chemical disruption without the ashy hangover, the blacking out, the poison. They trigger pleasure, fear, fascination, love, confusion, desire, repulsion. Drugs get flushed from our systems, but not the best stories. Once they take hold, you couldn’t scrape them out with a knife… The potent story writers, to me, are the ones who deploy language as a kind of contraband, pumping it into us until we collapse on the floor, writhing, overwhelmed with feeling.

Food for thought huh? At least for me, it was sort of meta, the way he used language to convey how language makes us feel. If you love reading (and writing), hopefully it did for you too.