It’s funny how a breakup can completely turn your world around.
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I know because a simple it’s over transformed me from a Carrie Bradshaw whose bread and butter came from thinking of a zillion daily ways of writing about the beauty of love to a self-proclaimed queen-of-broken-hearts who wouldn’t change her Taylor Swift-esque tune for the world. Only, my words were more powerful (because I was now thinking of a zillion daily ways to say ‘f*ck you’ in more eloquent phrasing) and I derived some pathetic satisfaction every time I hit ‘publish.’
Suggested read: You and I … in this beautiful world
Every hour of replaying disastrous fights in my mind, poring over passive-aggressive texts from the past and thinking of some ill-conceived excuse to have the last word resulted in a ruthless piece of bitter writing- that decidedly (if, at all, there was an iota of post-breakup doubt) put me in his ‘crazy ex’ books and made me pretty darned popular with readers of the ‘Wounded Hearts’ club- and I knew I’d found my calling.
But you know the thing they say about (wo-e)man proposes and God disposes, right?
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A few months into my angst-ridden writing spree, I met a ‘perfect’ guy and preemptively called things off because it was so much more easier to be single and under the radar, pretending I wasn’t terrified of meeting nice guys and breaking their hearts, than opening myself to a dream romance that might end with an undesirable addition to my gaping heartache. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sh*t scared of bringing potential romances to a screeching halt before they could become ‘something’ either. In fact, right after the date, I even typed in a few words relaying my anxiety to let my guard down and be someone’s ‘girlfriend’ again but found my angry-and-aggressive, self-righteous tragic avatar so much more comforting and cozy that I ended up writing a ‘goodbye’ poem that, for all my artistic efforts, failed to be ‘mature’ about the it’s over chapter of my life that hadn’t allowed me to turn the leaf.
But as life would have it, I bumped into this guy again and this time, my guilt and irreparable damage blended together in a heady cocktail to give this thing a shot. Eight months into the risk, I haven’t heard ‘it’s over’ yet. Call me brusque if you will, but I am not calling a spade a hammer. I took my chance with him despite being terrified of turning into the one he’d write my-kinda pieces about, but he put my fears to rest. In fact, I got caught up in these dreadful doubts so often, my twitchiness would have tempted any guy to put me in his own ‘crazy ex’ book- but he not only helped me work through my residual anger (and fear) with his special brand of humor and patience but made it possible for me to realize that I was dwarfing my artistic potential to fit the wound my ex had inflicted on my heart. I had been living under the illusion that my hurt was insurmountable and that anything I ever wrote would never be enough to capture the pain I felt and he helped me take off my blinders. And for that, I am perennially grateful.
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Sure, my pain helped me churn out some of my best pieces. But there’s a time and place for honest confession and none whatsoever for deliberate bashing. On closer inspection, I found out that I had exhausted all my ammo for declaring war and there was only so much of my ex’s insolence that I needed to turn a mirror toward. After that, however, I should have gone back to an uncompromising stand of artistic integrity where I wrote about how I was really feeling.
Because how I really feel is happy.
I am happy I found someone who isn’t just worth a ‘new first kiss,’ a second chance and a ‘zillion new ways of saying ‘love you,’’ but makes me see just how capable I am of feeling the zillion reasons I want to say ‘I love you’ and a trebled more of why I’d want to write about it. Most of all, he believes I can.
And I love him for that. And a million more reasons.
But most of all, I love him because he makes it impossible for me to not love him.
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He has peeled off my guarded garb and found me, just as I was, in the beginning- untainted from pain and heartache- a believer. He has made me believe in the goodness of all things- and celebrating them while you’ve got it. He makes me believe there’s more to the human race than a lopsided segmentation of those in relationships that do not care to read about others’ relationships anyway and those not in relationships who do not care to learn how happy the other faction truly is. Because, even though scraping old wounds to let the hurt bleed may help heal a thousand others writhing in the same pain, celebrating recovery shall offer them a more potent ointment to stitch the wound shut. The one people like to call closure- but I lovingly call hope.
Suggested read: You are not meant to forget him
Don’t get me wrong- I am not saying this just because I have been lucky but because most of us are unwilling to fight through our own unpreparedness to accept something ‘good’ when it comes along. Because, trust me, something ‘good’ is always coming.
Like I said, you will never believe how a breakup can completely turn your world around.
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