The Heart
Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013
I’m on a Southwest flight to San Jose to try to save my relationship.
I’m terrified.
I’m abandoning work for three and a half days but that’s the least of my worries.
I want to take care of him. I want to hold him and listen to everything that’s worrying him.
Mom will drive you to Burbank airport in the late afternoon, and you will be surprised by how supportive she is of your decision to drop everything and go after him, considering that she never really liked him.
You will pack your blue negligee, as if that’s even a possibility.
In fact, you will pack enough clothing for several days, hoping and mostly assuming that you will stay. That he will see you and retract his declaration.
The extended weekend that never was.
You were supposed to fly up that weekend, anyway. He wouldn’t turn you away.
He couldn’t.
I had nothing to lose and I had nothing to prove
and I was thinking about me and you
He won’t let you in.
You will beg him to take a walk with you, and you will shake like you’ve never shaken before.
He will agree, but he will not even let you leave your keys in his apartment.
He truly will not let you in.
So together you will walk into the night.
You will feel as though someone has pulled the tablecloth from under your place settings, and the dishes have all shattered. The forks are in your eyeballs and the knives have pierced your gut.
You will sit in the dark on that park picnic table, lit by an orange tungsten glow, and you will calmly list your reasons.
And he will say no.
And he will not let you touch him.
And he will call what you have become a diseased arm. And he will cut it off.
He will cut you off.
I had nothing to lose and I had no one to trust
and you were calling my name
Eventually he will insist on walking back to his apartment, and he will tell you not to follow him.
And he will close the door. And lock it.
And you will knock, asking for more time.
And he will not give it.
And once it hits you
You will shamelessly
lose it.
I had nothing to lose and I had nothing to prove and I was thinking about me and you
You will knock, and then pound, and then plead as you watch him through his blinds.
He will sit in silence on his couch.
And you will plead. And beg. And plead.
And your pleas will be completely and utterly ignored.
And then you will call Marta, who promises to come get you.
And you will collapse on the sidewalk, where forty minutes later she will find you.
I had nothing to lose and I had no one to trust
and you were calling my name.
The next day you will fly home.
Marta will get a speeding ticket on 280, driving you to the airport.
Friday, September 6th, 2013
I want to sleep and sleep and sleep because at least then I’m not aware of my thoughts.
My body is freezing hot.
I’m unpacking here, when I should have been unpacking there.
I just fly under, over Don’t you try
I know I’m going
You will lose your appetite for food and alcohol, and you will wrap yourself in the fear that no one
no one
could possibly love you as much or as well as he did.
no one
could possibly be a goofy, as smart, as athletic, as affectionate, as patient.
no one.
You will be, to put it simply, brokenhearted.
My dear, you will be so very brokenhearted.
You will listen to those who tell you that it gets better, but you will tell yourself that they don’t know. That you have completely, permanently, eternally
blown it.
You will lose 20 pounds.
I had nothing to lose and I had nothing to prove and I was thinking about me and you
Sunday, September 8th, 2013
My whole concept of the future is shattered.
I’m mad and hurt and angry and hurt and sad and I can’t stop crying.
And people now say that he wasn’t ultimately good enough for me, that he isn’t dynamic enough.
But they never held him, or were held by him. They never laid with him in bed, or fell asleep with him or woke up with him or brushed their teeth with him or cooked with him or drove in a car with him or slow danced in a parking lot with him or watched him while he slept.
You will spend the next several months scheming, and planning, and deluding yourself that if you only make the right moves you can fix this.
You will hear this song, and it will play on loop.
You will listen to it as you fly back to San Jose. For homecoming, for birthdays, for opening nights. And it will give you hope, somehow, that all will work out. With him.
I had nothing to lose
and I had nothing to prove
and I was thinking about me and you
I had nothing to lose
and I had no one to trust
and you were calling my name.
I just fly under, over
Don’t you try
I know I’m going
I just fly
Do what I want
Don’t you try
My dear, you will be so very brokenhearted.
But you will look inside, and find your goodness. And your kindness. And your happiness.
And you will be ok.
Saturday, February 22nd, 2014
Whoever you are, if you’re out there…
I hope you think I’m still attractive when my hair is curly.
I hope you like hiking and physical activity, but also staying in and watching movies.
I hope you like to cook…without my coaxing.
I hope you have a great, silly sense of humor, and that we never stop flirting.
I hope you still want to have sex with me when I’m on my period.
I hope you will go out and buy me Advil and Midol when I’m doubled over with cramps and can’t move.
I hope you come up behind me when I’m at the sink doing dishes, or brushing my teeth, and that you always want to hold my hand.
I hope you’re everything he was, but that you won’t give up.
It won’t always be perfect, though I think and hope that I will be a better person this time around.
I know, I know I will be.
When I ask you hard questions, I hope you will not say “I don’t know what to say,” but rather you will be wise enough to say something.
I hope we will have lots of inside jokes, and easily make each other laugh.
I will not need you to make me feel special, but if you want to, boy I won’t mind.
I hope you will want to take showers with me.
I hope you will also love clouds, and sunsets, and beauty that exists in nature.
I hope you will have favorite song lyrics, because you actually listen to lyrics.
I hope you like film scores.
I hope I feel like I am always learning something from you, even if it means you’re the one doing more of the talking because you always have some new thing to tell me.
I hope you’re gentle in person, and fantastically fierce in bed, though gentle there too.
I hope you like to drink…but not tooooooo much.
I hope you like staying in bed on Sunday mornings, or Saturdays. Any days.
I hope you own pants that look good on you.
I hope you will know how to feel.
I hope you will want to.
I hope you are in it for the good and the bad, though I promise to do my best to minimize the latter.
I hope you will love that I am powerful.
And tall.
And curvy.
Whoever you are,
if you’re out there,
I hope you love me
unconditionally.
And I
will do the same.
Reader, you will find him.
A year later to the day that your heart broke — the exact date
you will meet him, and though it will take a little while
(and you will gain back the weight you lost)
you will be so very happy.
In bed
As you fall asleep
As you wake up
And brush your teeth
And cook
And drive with him in a car
As you slow dance together in the living room
And as you watch him while he sleeps.
As you learn from each other, and stumble through conversations
Without clear answers.
And nearly two years from the time you first heard that song
Nearly two years from when your heart was its most broken
You will be sitting with him in a Korean dive bar — the spot of your first date
And the song will come on, sandwiched between bad club music.
and your heart
(and stomach)
will be so very full.
I had nothing to lose
and I had nothing to prove
and I was thinking about me and you
Because it turns out
the heart — that muscle!
grows most
after it breaks.
