Sequel: Everything After ›
Status: Life in Progress
Notes on Heartbreak
The Nature of Life
The way life works, the thing they try to tell you, is that it moves fast. Life is quick, it sneaks up on and suddenly its the end of the long week you'd been dreading, and suddenly its the end of your senior year, and suddenly you've been single for four months. Life changes every day, you can never predict what will happen next, you can try but you will be wrong. They say "Life is what happens when you're busy making plans" and my god are they right. Its so easy, too easy, to get caught up in the "what ifs" the possible scenarios of the future. You can scare yourself that way, by making far-fetched assumptions, by creating images in your head of realities that will never, in fact, be real. And as you're planning and looking towards the future you don't even realize that your present reality is changing all around you.
It's March 20 and I feel in love and we're on vacation and its pure bliss, nothing can take this away.
It's April 11 and my current reality shatters as he ends our year and a half long relationship.
It's June 26 and he can't respond to my birthday text, can't say hello as he walks into my basement for a party.
It's July 4 and he's telling me to stop acting psychotic. He says we can be civil and we can friends.
It's July 20 and he's telling me he misses me. He wants to see me. Talking to me is the highlight of his summer. We video chat and talk like we used to.
It's August 5 and I'm at his house, I get the kiss I never thought I would have again.
It's August 13 and we haven't spoken. Was he bored? Did he just say those things to fill the long spans of time he had in Ireland?
It's August 23 and here I am. Yesterday I saw him, I kissed him, I laughed with him again. Today its as though nothing changed. Tomorrow is my birthday. Tomorrow is a question as is the day after and the week after and the month after.
If you had asked me on July 4 where I would be in a month I could have said a whole lot of things. I could have made up ideal plans and scenarios but I guarantee they couldn't have been further from what actually happened. I survived 4 months. THIS is the epiphany that gets me through hard days, so simple and obvious yet powerful. Did I think heart break was going to kill me? Some days, I believe that I did, for the fact that its been 4 months is astounding. Time moved so slowly yet so quickly. Things changed immensely, week by week, month by month. I have been single and independent for four months, never having expected to be where I am right now. I don't know whats going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month, and sure as hell not next year. I could take a guess, yes. But to assume and to live in the assumptions of the future is both naive and very discrediting to life. Life is now. Life is today. That is the only time you can change, the present time, this very moment. You have no influence on tomorrow, for you have no idea what tomorrow even holds. To attempt to do so will only destroy your 'now'.
It's March 20 and I feel in love and we're on vacation and its pure bliss, nothing can take this away.
It's April 11 and my current reality shatters as he ends our year and a half long relationship.
It's June 26 and he can't respond to my birthday text, can't say hello as he walks into my basement for a party.
It's July 4 and he's telling me to stop acting psychotic. He says we can be civil and we can friends.
It's July 20 and he's telling me he misses me. He wants to see me. Talking to me is the highlight of his summer. We video chat and talk like we used to.
It's August 5 and I'm at his house, I get the kiss I never thought I would have again.
It's August 13 and we haven't spoken. Was he bored? Did he just say those things to fill the long spans of time he had in Ireland?
It's August 23 and here I am. Yesterday I saw him, I kissed him, I laughed with him again. Today its as though nothing changed. Tomorrow is my birthday. Tomorrow is a question as is the day after and the week after and the month after.
If you had asked me on July 4 where I would be in a month I could have said a whole lot of things. I could have made up ideal plans and scenarios but I guarantee they couldn't have been further from what actually happened. I survived 4 months. THIS is the epiphany that gets me through hard days, so simple and obvious yet powerful. Did I think heart break was going to kill me? Some days, I believe that I did, for the fact that its been 4 months is astounding. Time moved so slowly yet so quickly. Things changed immensely, week by week, month by month. I have been single and independent for four months, never having expected to be where I am right now. I don't know whats going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month, and sure as hell not next year. I could take a guess, yes. But to assume and to live in the assumptions of the future is both naive and very discrediting to life. Life is now. Life is today. That is the only time you can change, the present time, this very moment. You have no influence on tomorrow, for you have no idea what tomorrow even holds. To attempt to do so will only destroy your 'now'.