You Deserve To Be Heartbroken

You deserve to reside in the highest state of happiness,

but first you have to hurt.

The idea dawned on me the other day, seeing a good friend go through a heartbreak. It seems an almost automatic response, programmed sympathy cushioning the damage in the form of “You don’t deserve this”. But truth is, she does. She is an amazing, talented, caring person, but I can say with the utmost confidence that she, along with everyone, deserves a broken heart.

Because I think you need to be broken. 

You need closed curtain days draped in darkness and cocooned in bed sheets.

You need to have numb blurry nights, music too loud and liquor too strong.

You need to feel your gut betray you, viciously swallowing your heart whole every time you see their name splashed across a screen, or hide how heavy your chest feels when it spirals up in light conversation.

You need to fear the false hope that lingers in the waking hours, when the world is at bay and the teasing sunlight whispers tales of how today things will feel okay.

You need to grieve to understand that regret is the heaviest of debts, and if you tread it’s weight in water long enough, you will drown. 

But when the day arrives that happiness comes knocking on your door, invite it in. Let it sit where bitterness used to rest, as remnants of this broken love dissolve. Thank it kindly for showing up just in time.

See, the deeper that sorrow carves into your soul, the more room you have to soon be filled with joy. 

In the mean time you can’t resent the hurt like it is some form of evil. Heartbreak is misunderstood. It is the wolf and you are the prey, its a part of life and you can’t blame it for how it hunts. Because when you make it out alive, you will learn it’s patterns of attack. You will remember all of the places it hides, you’ll recognize where it feeds, the smoke and mirrors, the warning signs you never wanted to believe. Take heartbreak as a lesson, accept it as a hidden blessing.

Rest assured although it may be nonsense now,  if heartbreak is the predator of love then hindsight is the god of growth. We lack understanding of pain until we play our lives out in reverse.

You can’t appreciate presence without absence, we aren’t programmed to value a moment until it’s stolen. But when we take a glance behind our backs, all of those dots seem to connect and we are left staring at the intricate constellation of serendipity- the little coincidences. In all of the moments, amongst the pain, the loneliness, the joy and the freedom, hopefully you realize that happenstance was on our team all along, the quiet underdog, the unsung hero.

That friend you lost, that party you almost ditched, that plane you missed, that love gone sour, it lead you somewhere. Life is short but it sure as hell isn’t small, and what it lacks in gentleness it makes up for in purpose.

But for now just fill yourself with things that make your heart smile. Go on an adventure, visit an old friend, pick up an instrument, run a marathon, skip work and sleep under the stars, lose yourself in a good book or at a crowded concert. Feel temporary love, experience passionate lust, marvel at how damn amazing this universe is. Channel the pain, let it make you bold. Don’t do it for him or for her or because you think you should, do it because you want to. Do it for you. 

Eventually, you will be able to let someone else pour themselves into all of your missing bits that people of your past have stolen. They will be plaster on cracked pavement, seeping into spaces you didn’t think needed saving. You’ll notice how their elbow fits into the curve in your neck, how your hands fill theirs. You’ll come to realize that your bodies were just misplaced puzzle pieces you have been forcing to fit into the shape of all the wrong people.

When it’s all said and done, you will wake up at noon in thirty years wrapped up in someone who swears by your heart, someone who makes you understand why it never worked out with anyone else, and you’ll want to thank the faint memory of the one who broke you now. My god I swear to you by then you will realize that you deserve this hurt, all of it, because without it you will never completely understand wholesome, irrevocable, unconditional bliss. You warrent all of the amazing things that come out of heartbreak my friend, and that is what you deserve.