This is my second column for this week, after my short intro on Monday, I went out for some quality time with a friend of mine. She is in her 40’s. Embracing both physical and emotional changes, she complains about her clothes that don’t quite fit the same. About using magnifying eyeglasses to check her phone and being unfortunate in almost every relationship she had. I found myself gazing at her attentively, reading, and contemplating every single expression she is making. Her face takes me back to the 17thcentury in France when women had pale faces as a symbol of moral purity, honesty, virginity, cleanliness. In her case, she was just healing herself from a broken heart. She still has that inner beauty but there is no spark in her eyes and her thoughts are shattered. She talks about A but cannot pass by B & C to reach D. “Unhealthy relationships tend to end fast”, she says, a quote from miss America 1945 Bess Myerson, voices out her opinion that to fall in love is awfully simple, but to fall out of love is simply awful especially if you are the one who wants the relationship to last.
I thought about what she was vocalizing with a shivering tone, and I concluded after I did extensive reading, that broken heart syndrome is a heart condition that really exists. It is caused by stressful situations and extreme emotions. A woman with a broken heart may have sudden chest pains that affect just part of it and temporarily disrupting its normal pumping function and causing shortness of breath. The heart arteries are not blocked, only the blood flow may be reduced, and it pervaded to me that this is what she was going through for the past week without knowing the mainsprings behind it.
It is exceedingly inevitable not to feel the magnitude of the fissure, but also to remember that great things do not always immerge from comfort zones. By going through immense pain, we can surface as a stronger person. Observing her sipping her cold coffee sitting there on the table for quite some time, she smiles a bit with eyes looking away. She takes a few slow deep breaths and says that the best thing she did is that she hammered her fragile affair to small fragments, dealing with each piece one at a time, and she is glad that there are many tiny pieces she cannot find anymore. Then she adds “but sex was great”, that is why she couldn’t let go easily, her toxic relationship was too dependent on the physical part, it is no longer holding happiness, there was no emotional intimacy and no communication. She assumes that love, commitment, and sex always go hand in hand. I am aware that this is not true, it varies between a committed and a non-committed relationship. It can be for love and passion or simply for having some fun. A woman must know what she wants. Seemingly it is something about sex and its ability to make people take stupid steps. It robs people of common sense creating a tunnel vision that makes you think of nothing else in that moment but how to release that sexual tension.
We both agree that it is crucial after a broken heart not to try to fill in the void by rushing to another relationship. Detach yourself instead of attaching it too much. From my own shy experience, I felt that time was moving in a different pace from anyone else around me being overwhelmed by an emotional ache and a feeling of immense distraction. But I got used to not having it at the end. It is all about habits and how you let them into your life. I created the habit of being alone. I sleep, eat, and breathe alone and share my dreams and hopes with myself. I laughed and cried a lot about my choices, Don’t we all feel good after a long cry? There are findings that emotional tears contain toxic biochemical byproducts so weeping removes these substances and relieves stress.
We went our separate ways, each one of us carrying our own thoughts and experiences. I kept telling myself don’t judge, don’t complain, don’t assume that the worse will happen, and don’t try to control everything, just let it go.
“Oprah Winfrey” once said about broken relationships: "No, it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t feel good at this moment, but in the future, it’s the thing that’s going to light you up so you can stay lit! When you look at the thing, the deeper the heartache, the more you needed to learn, and that is actually the truth... Every heartache is there to teach you something about yourself.”
Talk is cheap? I know but it is always worth trying, and always remember to love again. © ReinaSankari 2020
Cheers
Twitter: @Reina Sankari
