Your heart is shattered, promises broken as if they never were, and dreams smashed on the floor.

That moment when the unfathomable has happened and you begin to realise that this is your new reality, and you can’t do a thing to change it. You lay in a puddle of tears, all the hope and love from your once full heart, leaking out.

Where to now?

You still love the one who caused you such pain, but you’re angry. Angry that they didn’t fight for us as hard as you did. Angry that they could walk away and not be scathed by the shards of the broken love that has exploded inside you like a bomb in a glass house, shattering your being and sense of self.

Were you not enough? Your friends tell you that you deserve better—that you deserve a love that is true and real. But that’s what you had, isn’t it? At least you that’s what you thought you had.

You don’t want to start over. You want the one you love. You want to go back to before the cracks appeared, or the explosion that caused the sudden end, and fix it—because to you its worth fixing. You would never give up.

How could they just give up?

As the tears roll down your cheeks and your heart feels open and exposed, you can’t imagine another breath, another day, another smile or happy moment without this person. How could they walk away? Did you not give your all? Were you not worth the trouble?

Exactly how are you supposed carry on?

The pain ebbs and flows as you try to busy yourself and try not think about the one who was your one—the person you planned a future with, the person who filled your days and nights, and every thought and moment in between. Why? Because they were worth those moments spent planning and dreaming. It was the good and bad times that made you stronger. It was what made you who you were—together.

Don’t they remember the promises made after passionate love making and late night chats? Have they completely forgotten the dreams made on long walks, or looking over the roof tops, when together you both felt you could conquer it all? Is dancing to their favourite song and intimate whispers just a distant memory? You promised each other forever and they said that was all they had ever wanted—that you were all they had ever wanted. You were the one they had waited for.

But now it’s over.

You are alone with your thoughts and memories, and those shattered dreams that cut like glass. Still you wonder how this person is not dying inside like you are? How can they so easily carry on living without you? Do they just hide their pain better, or was their heart not in it? Were their words filled with lies?

The truth is some of us just feel more. Some of us make promises that we mean, while others speak on a whim. They feel love at that moment. But for them, when the moment passes, its forgotten like a leaf blown away in the wind. It was there—real for a moment, but gone on to other places while you stand solid as an oak tree. You still believed nothing could shake the love that decorated your soul and made you who you are.

They say that you can teach a person, who feels love too strongly or emotionally, to control and cope with these overwhelming emotions. But you can’t teach a heartless person to care. They say you are better being you. But are you?

Do they really know the pain of not knowing how to go on when you have been torn in two and you can’t breathe? If they truly knew the pain, wouldn’t they wish as you do, to no longer feel?

Yes we do breathe, one breath at a time. Our hearts do recover, one beat at a time. And it’s only us who can walk our walk and begin to believe, maybe not that everything happens for a reason—or not one we understand—but that we can survive. We can learn to cherish the memories with a little less pain as we begin to make new ones.

The pain is real. And we can only hope it won’t happen again—that someone will appreciate us and the love we have to offer, and give love in return and not just take it. Someone who will make the effort to comfort our stitched up heart and love us as entirely as we love, no matter how imperfect we may be.

And maybe someone will read this and not selfishly promise that broken girl things that they can’t give. Because every heart is a life full of hopes and dreams.

 

Author: Nicki Walsh

Apprentice Editor: Gayle Fleming / Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: coloredgrey/Flickr