a heartbreak anniversary
on commemorating how far I’ve come to get through the heartbreak
--
I was washing my dishes when my Spotify playlist shuffled to Heartbreak Anniversary by Giveon. If a slow and reverb song or voice comes in human form, I believe it’d be Giveon. We know he has an amazing baritone voice, but we won’t talk about him although the title of this writing is based on one of his songs.
Let me be honest, I wrote this piece to commemorate my heartbreak. Because I believe that celebrating the sadness and grief in life is just as important as celebrating the good things in life.
Yes, it’s been a year since I got betrayed by someone that I thought would never do such disgusting and despicable things. Thanks to the shuffle of Heartbreak Anniversary that made me recall those memories that now feel like far away.
A year ago, I felt like my world had crumbled down. I spent those sleepless nights resenting myself, questioning myself; what did I do to be treated like this? The heartbreak has blown a hole in my trust and I didn’t know if I could live my life the same way before all those things happened.
But looking at myself now, I can say that I’m proud of myself. Because I can overcome that heartbreak although I got some bruises here and there in my heart and mind. But, hey, I survived and I couldn’t be prouder of myself.
I think heartbreak is like a storm. Like the one that Haruki Murakami described in one of his books; Kafka on the Shore:
“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
So does heartbreak. Once you’ve gone through a heartbreak or grief, you’ll never walk out the same. There’s something or some things within you that change, either in a good way or a bad way, but one thing for sure is, it changes.
You might feel helpless, worthless, lost, your flight-or-fight response is getting stronger, or you even blame yourself for what happened even though that is not your mistake. And the shit thing is, those things and feelings might remain in yourself for the rest of your life.
Then, in one session with my psychologist, I talked about those feelings. I told her that I felt like I was in a delusional healing process, I felt like I hadn’t healed at all after all these times because sometimes it still haunts me; the memories and the pain.
Do you know what she said to me as her response? She said that healing is not about not feeling, not remembering — anything, at all. But healing is about our reaction when the trigger happens.
I was blown away for sure. Stunned, precisely. And when she asked me, have I healed? I smiled a little, nodded, and said, “Yes, my healing is progressing.”
Heartbreak is not fair. It’s never fair in the very first place. When I was struggling with the pain to the point where I needed to see a psychologist again, my dastard ex could live his life like there’s nothing happened, as if I’d never been in his life. He could’ve come to see me to say a genuine apology and give me the proper closure, but no, he does not.
Even though people always say that no closure is also a closure, I need the proper one. Not a closure in a cowardly way. Unfair, but that’s heartbreak. That’s life.
One of my friends even joked about this. He said that I was mistaken about that dastard ex as my love but turns out he’s my character development. We had a good laugh and this has become our inside joke.
So, happy heartbreak anniversary to me. To the miles of the walk on the flower path!
