Being Broken Will Make You Better

I wish that I could fix you right now. I wish that your heart was fully intact. I wish that it was easy for you to wake up every day and continue on with your life. But it just doesn’t work like that when your heart is broken. This stuff happens, and that is ultimately OK. You will ultimately be OK; it’s the hardest thing to believe but truer words have never been spoken.

I wrote this in hopes that anyone with a broken heart might grasp onto the truth. I don’t want to focus on what happens when you’re over the person who broke your heart in this moment. That will come in time. Right now, I want to focus on the pure, unfiltered, uneasy state of being broken. Because in a strange way, it is going to help you a lot in life.

You’re heartbroken right now. And heartbreak has to run its course. Your broken heart needs time to heal. It needs positive energy, words of wisdom from the previously heartbroken and the knowledge that one-day it will be whole again. Trust me, you will be fixed.

I know what it is like to be broken. And I am so incredibly lucky that I do. I can understand life on a deeper level. I’ve been to the very bottom and I’ve reached the very top; both feelings are worth experiencing.

To feel heartbroken is such a powerful thing. If you allow yourself to feel it, there is beauty in that pain. I was inspired to help people and write about my story to relate to others while I was so broken. I became a writer; sitting down at my computer everyday with words seeping from my every pour. It was beautiful the way the words poured out of me just as the tears poured from the edge of my quivering eyes.

I became a counselor, helping people from all over the world with their own broken hearts, hoping to heal mine a little on the way. I listened to friends; I apologized to old ones who had been through something similar for not initially comprehending the pain that they had endured.

When I wrote about it, I always wrote positively. Though I explicitly delved into the real darkness and woes of feeling broken, every article had a positive message and an air of hope to it. Now I’ll be completely honest, I hardly believed a word I wrote. I wrote those words in hopes that by writing down what I would have liked to hear, I would start to believe it. But I didn’t. My own words didn’t fix my heart. Nothing fixed my heart. Except time. That’s what finally did it for me.

I’m approaching a year since my own heartbreak and though I still think about it and feel like crying on a rare occasion, I don’t let it tear me down the way it used to. It took me this long to get to a point where I can confidently say that I am stable, happy and even thriving. I’ll always have a sore spot when it comes to this fateful year I spent at rock bottom, but by no means will I ever let it define my relationships with people or my relationship with myself in a negative way.

Throughout this insane year, I discovered so much about myself. I learned to enjoy my own company and embrace silence. I learned to nourish the friendships that gave back to me as much as I gave out. I learned that life is so much more than finding happiness through another person.

I will always be grateful for the experiences I had with my ex. We changed each other for the better and felt very deeply for one another for a very long time. I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved him. But he is just a character in my story, an important one who helped move it along and get me to where I need to be, but not the one to end it. And that is OK. There are better things for me out there which is something I look forward to every day.

I may be jaded, more cynical and a little guarded now, but I would not have it any other way. We are not supposed to remain blissful to love forever. Love requires work, effort and especially time. To love someone is not solely a feeling, it is a decision. And now, I’m just going to be more careful as to who I decide to love. But being careful about choosing a partner is hardly a plan of action in ensuring a healthy heart. Sometimes these things cannot be predicted. The greatest of people are still guilty of hurting the people they love.

This brokenness that you are letting define you right now is going to fuel you for the rest of your life. It will make you work harder, understand life to a greater ability and realize that life is way too short to ever let yourself feel that broken again. On the other side of this river of mourning and shattered pieces of your heart is strength and a beautiful future to look forward to.

So live in this broken existence for a while. You have no other choice. Just know that at the end of it, you will meet a new version of yourself. And that person is amazing.

Being broken is one of the hardest things you will ever have to do, but after the storm clouds have passed and the pieces have been put back together, being broken will make you better.