My best friend is undergoing a heartbreak and the ripple effect is gruesome even to me.
People tend to judge those who are undergoing one form of heartbreak or the other. They utter words like, “it’s time to move on.” “You must be strong.” Or “you need to love yourself more.”
All these, and many more “words of encouragement” that are usually said to those wallowing in the trenches high on self pity, are usually easier said than done.
I understand all these because I have been there and done that. As someone that has perfected the act of moving on swiftly like nothing ever happened, I admit that it’s never easy.
Some heartbreaks are easier to overcome than others. Getting to that acceptance stage and seeing things for what they really are requires a mind of steel and a huge presence of will. It is more of a mental war than anything, the anguish unbearable, the physical pain surpassing that of broken bones.
Sometimes you win the battle but lose the war. Eventually, in the grand scheme of things, none emerges an outright winner.
Anytime I call my friend, the outcome is predictable; she’ll burst into heavy tears. No matter what the topic of conversation is, she’ll manage to steer it back towards the heartbreak. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I act like I am….and sometimes my mind switches off. I just need to be there, to give her a listening ear and let her rant. Let her curse or do whatever it is she needs to do at that moment.
I know all of these because I have been there, and even though I pride myself in being the queen of moving on, it took longer than I expected. A whole two months. It took me a lot of mental strength to let go. To move on and accept the situation for what it truly was.
It’s a battle you can easily lose, this one. Only the strong survive – and I’m not talking about physical strength. To get out of that stalking stage…out of that crying stage. That stage where you get random, weird dreams of this person. You have to will yourself to snap out of it. And then you wake up one day and realise the dreams stopped as suddenly as they came.
You realise it’s been months since you stalked them…people notice you smiling more. Suddenly you are not as uptight as you used to be. You are replying to Dms, you are slowly getting back to your old self.
Before you realise it, this person becomes a distant memory, someone you occasionally remember when something triggers a memory; and even then, the thought of them is fleeting. Like a passing two second memory and it no longer hurts. They become a distant memory like everyone else in your past.
You realise the only reason they seemed like such great human beings was because of how much you loved them. Now they seem so ordinary, so plain. You wonder what made them appear that special before. Now they are just a stranger to you, someone you once knew intimately.
It is the peace that washes after that makes you realise that indeed, the wave pain that you underwent was never worth the high.
The puzzle starts to fit now and you realise cliches like “everything happens for a reason,” are not that much of clichés after all.
I tell my friend that it gets worse before it gets better. She tells me she thinks she is going to die from the pain.
I assure her she won’t, but I can see she doesn’t believe one bit of what I am telling her, and she really does believe that she will die from this pain. I need to let her experience it. I understand how much she needs this….this baptism of fire so that she can believe it in her heart that heartbreak is temporary and that at the end of the day, everyone is replaceable.
My personal way of dealing with the unbearable pain was listening to sad music and going through sad quotes that would let me let it all out. Trust me, it helped me alot.
Which is why I am going to share with you 25 greatest heartbreak quotes of all time.
Who better to put you in your feelings than the great poet Mahmoud Darwish?
“Let’s swap places. You get to wait for me and I never show up.”
“Oh but that’s the irony. Broken people are not fragile “
Clinton Sammy Jr.
“Don’t forget somewhere between hello and goodbye, there was love. So much love.”
“Soulmates aren’t just lovers.”
“I am learning to love the sound of my feet walking away from things that aren’t meant for me.”
“Maybe it was something not important to you, but it was my heart.”
“Wear your scars proudly. Whatever tried to kill you failed.”
“I am too full of love to be half loved.”
Ijeoma Umebinyuo
“I am not mad at myself for giving my love to the wrong people. They probably needed it the most.”
“Survivors have scars. Victims have graves.”
“A university degree, four books and hundreds of articles and I still make mistakes when reading. You wrote me good morning and I read it as I love you “
Mahmoud Darwish
“We cry at goodbyes. Because we know, that deep down, the person who comes back isn’t the same person who left us.”
“Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say.”
“To whom do I owe the biggest apology? No one’s been crueler than I’ve been to me.”
Alanis Morissette
“Sometimes you need to burn bridges to stop yourself from crossing them again.”
“Never beg them to stay. Be the type of person who holds the door for them and wishes them the best.”
“In the end, we all just want someone that chooses us. Over everyone else. Under any circumstances.”
“Ten years from now, make sure you can say that you chose your life, you didn’t settle for it.”
This post is dedicated to my bestie C.A, who has been there for me, more than I could care to count. I too will be here for you, until this storm passes; and pass it shall.
