Heartbreak Hotel

So here I sit, my chest cavity ripped open and laid bare for all to see... minus the heart that once beat there.

I feel like the gaping, bloody hole where my heart used to sit is now empty. Vacant. Space to let.

It's dramatic, yes.  But, if you let youself go there, anyone who has ever had the misfortune to have fallen in love and felt the unbearable sting of a break up will know that these words barely scratch the surface of how it feels when you're in that place.

When your heart has been crumpled, battered and shattered into a billion pieces it feels like the world is ending. Yet, miraculously over time, it repairs itself.  Not just once or twice but Every. Single. Time.

Don't be fooled though, there is a price to pay. Whenever it manages to regroup, it is always minus a few pieces which are so destroyed that they disappear - Never to be seen again. Lost forever to the person who broke it.

These pieces eventually fill with scar tissue resulting in a heart that is tougher than the original, but now unsightly and a constant reminder of what has been. The heart never looks as it did when it first felt the tender flush of  first love but it does grow stronger and a little bit tougher with each bit of heartache.

Each break-up is a lesson too. If you're smart, you don't make the same mistakes more than once because scar tissue is tougher to break... but it takes longer to heal.

This, as with everything else on the personal development journey, is easy to say and difficult to do in real life.

In that fragile state, my personal emotional array goes from one extreme to another within seconds. Anger, Denial, Pain, Loss, Relief, Acceptance, Sadness, Indifference and Hope. I churn through these emotions at an alarming rate and my own unfortunate disposition is that, mostly, what's in my emotions shows up clearly on my face.

This is the cycle for me...

I think about everything then I can't concentrate on anything else. I feel sick. My heart beats too fast. My palms get sweaty and I think i might pass out. 

Then, without rhyme or reason, I calm down again and my logical self takes over for a while allowing me some recovery time and a false sense of security...


...before religiously giving way to irrational fear, doubt, guilt and self loathing... and the cycle begins again.

It's endless and exhausting.

All this and the trauma of missing that person and not being able to talk to them means that I end up completely wiped out. Sure, I can get through work and keep it together for the general public but when I go home and shut the door it feels like there is no strength left to fight it.

This ends in either tears, unscrupulous alcohol abuse or overeating. The latter two thirds of which I secretly enjoy... but they never truly ease the pain or fill the void.

I always try to keep in mind all of my logical faculties. I know that these things just get a little better every day. I know the logical responses which should be adhered to... I'm just not the best at sticking to my own sound advice.

Eventually, the ability to keep it all 'in check' returns in minimal increments over weeks and months. Then one day you wake up and you forget to remember that you were ever sad at all... which in itself is kind of sad.

Who knows where I am currently on the sliding scale of heartbreak repair. If only there were a heartbreak repair kit, like a bicycle repair kit that could just keep the damn thing going until it mended itself.

The person who invents a cure for heartbreak (other than overeating, moaning to your friends and drinking wine in mahoosive measures) could technically rule the world.

Until then though... i'll just keep breathing in and out... putting one foot in front of the other... Living in the moment...and trying not to eat too much chocolate.