Lessons from a Broken Heart

I don’t think I fully understood the relationship between time and respect until now. My favorite time for most anything has generally been ‘now’. Even things I didn’t want or particularly like, it feels better to simply get those things over with, you know, now.

When the relationship I believed to be the one that would carry me through the rest of my days ended abruptly, time stopped. I resisted. I had zero respect for time or the moment. My emotions demanded my full attention. I kicked and screamed, literally and figuratively. I pleaded and begged. I rationalized. I attempted to betray my own needs and wants, and finally I settled, exhausted, into despair, where I remained for longer than I and others were comfortable with.

This week, for the first time in a very long time – close to a year, I heard myself laugh again, a full out bellowing laugh that came and went for the better part of an hour. This big throaty, head back, mouth open wide, full-body kind of laugh was, and is, a glorious restorative precious thing. It felt so easy, like finding something that was just hiding in the back of my closet I wasn’t even looking for, a long-lost favorite treasure. I didn’t analyze it as it was happening. I rolled with it fully and with abandon. The next morning, I began to marvel at the ease with which this particular kind of joy returned. Eight months or more joy had been missing, dormant, absent. And just like that, just as spring is exploding all around me, so too am I emerging from a long dark cold miserable season, hand in hand with joy apparently.

I have no regrets about how long the thawing has taken, is taking. I am quite aware of how long I’ve felt stuck, mired in the muck and mud, the endless string of what-ifs and five years of conversations replaying in my head over and over and over. Going to sleep and waking up crying feeling hopelessness and shock. I worried that my friends would grow tired of my heartbreak. This great Love, the greatest I thought, deserves ample mourning and grieving. I am resigned to giving it all the time it needs. I am fully aware that I am not done with the grieving, or rather, the grieving is not done with me. But/and/also, the season is beginning to turn, and I am grateful for that. I am also grateful for the wisdom not to rush my heartbreak, my pain, my grief. It feels powerful and womanly to sit squarely in my own darkness.

The greatest gift the ending of this relationship I never intended to end has given me is a new deep, louder than ever, thick, unignorable connection between the wisdom of my body and my consciousness. My ‘yes’ and my ‘no’ so clear they penetrate the clouds of my foggy grieve stricken heart and mind. Well-meaning friends have encouraged me to find happiness and even begin dating again, a thought that fully repulsed me. The wisdom of my body letting me know it, she, we are not ready, yet.

Have you ever seen an umbilical cord - I mean really looked at one, or even touched one? It’s far thicker and tougher than you might imagine. It connects baby to mother to source to life. It sustains baby, preparing baby for life outside of the womb. This newly emerged connection with my body is like that, strong, impenetrable, natural, nourishing, safe, tough, and for me. This slow and gentle thawing, the laughter penetrating the darkness of my grief-womb all the while connected to my own source, this has been and is exactly the healing I need.

Attachment theory is fascinating. Attachment and authenticity are forever at odds with one another. (If you have no idea what this means spend some time going down a Google rabbit hole. It’s important stuff.) As a very young child, before I could speak even, I learned, as many of us do, how to shush the inner voice of my own needs and wants in an attempt to remain attached to those most precious to me, those who my very life depends on. No matter what, the connection to other superseded my connection to self. This is natural for survival. When we are little and vulnerable, we must remain attached to those who care for us, our parents, and other caregivers. However, when the attachment is unhealthy due to trauma, it often leads to unhealthy attachment later in life. This was most definitely the case for me. My childhood left me with a well-established anxious attachment style left over from years of repeated neglect and abandonment. I have been fully conscious and aware of this for many years, and yet not able to fully shake it.

This particular survival mechanism is no longer healthy or warranted. I am no longer a little vulnerable child dependent on those around me for my survival, even though I might still sometimes feel that way. It no longer serves me to shush the inner wisdom of my body, my authenticity, in favor of attaching to another person’s wants or needs while ignoring my own.

And so now, with this new awareness deepening and growing in my heart and mind, a healthy connection feels to have been restored. As if some sublime witchery, most probably the alchemy of my own willingness to feel all that there is to feel without rushing it, I have been attached, or reattached, to my own umbilical cord, to my own inner wise parent finally!

I want to make it abundantly clear, I am not advocating a life of independence or going it solo. I very much believe in connection, healthy connection, interdependence rather than dependence. We do need each other. I could never have gotten where I am without significant support, strength, time, gentleness, honesty, and Love from friends, family as well as professionals. I believe independence is way over-glorified by our society and leads to feelings of separateness and depression. I am however saying the wisdom of my body, my inner authority, supersedes any and all outside influence. Seek wise council, yes, but/and/also maintain your sovereignty.

And to the person reading this far, thank you. You may be wondering why I would put something so personal out there. I have an answer for you…

Once upon a time, we lived in far closer proximity to one another. Multi-generational living has sadly gone the way of the dodo. Families and friends are spread by miles, and busy-ness, and obligations and a host of other things including fear. We are not in and out of each other’s houses and lives like we once were. We live in apart-ments. We are far, far too separated from each other’s hearts and stories. We miss learning how to grieve from those older than us, how to hold space for each other, how to care for and about each other. Witnessing the intimate details of someone else’s life feels voyeuristic. This was not always the case. I let you into my heart, broken or otherwise, because I don’t want you to feel alone if, and when heartbreak and grief come for you. They come for all of us. We ought not feel like we are the only ones, or that we must reinvent the wheel of how to best navigate something that feels impossible. And so, I share so that you might feel a greater sense of connection, and yes, so that I feel that too.

With so much Love and tenderness,
Tracey
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