At the risk of sounding cliche, a broken heart isn’t unknown to me. It is a homeland which I return to often. I speak its language in fluent, un-stuttering phrases; an unwavering first-language. Before all else, it seems, I know loss. I know the way it lingers, the way the gaps between your fingers feel empty without something to claw into, the way your shoulder blades pain from standing upright through the hurt too often.
I had tried to swear off all the things which caused loss to hurt so deeply: love, affection, friendship. An addict claiming sobriety from the desire of wanting for someone to stay, someone worth staying for. I thought I would much rather have killed my lungs than I would let another person pass through my ribcage and make themselves at home. It was easier to accept a cigarette from a stranger than to allow myself a friendship which came too close, or a love which tasted too sweet.
Yet, I have found myself here again — placing my heart in another’s hands. I ask them if I can trust them with it, and ask myself if they can trust me with theirs. For someone so steadfast on building walls, I seem to throw open windows, allowing for people to crawl through. These people, unruly in their insistence to love deeply and care ferociously, have now set up a fort made of blankets in the deepest part of my chest, hung up fairy lights, put the kettle on, and are shouting out the dirtiest of jokes; they’ve made a home of my heart, and woven flowers around my ribs, insisting I heal. I can’t find it in me to evict them.
Unfortunately, this is the human condition. It’s a horrendous truth to accept.
To speak of love and to speak of loss; the two naturally go hand in hand. It is the reason we hold onto memories through grief and through misery. It is the reason we place flowers on graves, the reason we hoard photos in our phone galleries, the reason we write, even when in pain. I am a collector of all the parts of themselves which people leave behind. A photobooth picture of a group of best friends. A conversation screenshot of a confession. A glow stick from a party, or a concert ticket stub. An inside joke. A phrase. An achingly familiar laugh. A reminder of them in every place you go, haunting you as you try to walk through the streets without your mind drifting to the people you once had — those who once loved you, who you onced loved back.
Heartbreak, it seems, isn’t caused at goodbye. Mean words, pointed fingers, who’s at fault, and who’s the blame? It’s all meaningless. True pain comes after the goodbye; it’s rooted in all the goodness your relationship once used to offer. The pain takes root in the home amidst your ribcage. They’ve torn through the tissue, battled through the bloody mess, unwove the rotten flowers from around your ribs, pulled down the fairylights and the fort. The door they left through is wide open and bleeding out, unhealing.
In the aftermath, when you are left standing alone in a room that used to once be full of your people, it’s impossible to not think of that goodness amongst the hurt and the resentment. You miss them so much that it hurts, and it’s almost worth going through the pain all over again to bring them back. You think of your past and future in a capsule; in an ideal world, you got everything you wanted. Those friends still dance at your wedding, your brother still walks you down the aisle. You still sit in rooms that were once your second home. You get to watch someone grow old, not at a distance, but by their side. No one is missing; they are all still with you, in this ideal world — it’s almost worth all the hurt.
It might not be worth it; it might be okay to lose what no longer serves you. I found that (again, at the risk of sounding cliche) love finds you when you are expecting it the least. Loss after loss after loss, and then love finds you in a busy club or at 11pm in the Honi office. Love that was always there makes itself known; your family, whether that be blood or choice, lifts you off the couch as you grieve, they put food in your mouth, and laughter in your throat.
Fortunately, the human condition is a beautiful one. We need love. It is a comforting truth to accept, though you’ve spent your life running from it.
Think about those you’ve lost, all the goodness you had once held in the palm of your hands in those relationships, and now, think about who you have right now. All the goodness in your life you would not have had if you had run, shut your doors, built your walls.
In the aftermath of loss, I find myself rebuilding my walls. Anything to keep the cold out, or in this case, the warmth. Recently, I have realised I’m not much of a bricklayer; the foundations of my cage are weak and brittle. People keep finding themselves slipping through the cracks.
I’ve found that love finds me slowly, creeps up on me. It’s always a shock when you are standing in a room full of your people again, but they’re not the same people you once had. Surrounded by so much goodness the fear of losing them settles deep into your bones, yet not enough to stop the laughter which escapes your throat. I sit giggling on the office floor with new friends, spilling secrets, making promises, catching myself off guard by the closeness I have allowed myself with people who have infiltrated my heart so seamlessly. I wake up and fall asleep to a voice which is more familiar to me than my own, someone whose heart now beats in sync with my own, despite my trials and efforts to keep him out. I sit in grief and laughter with those who have seen me through all my loss, who have lived it with me, who have always made room for me in their chest when I needed a home to run to. Those who never evicted me.
I grappled with the fear of loss in every moment, in every promise made. Not only to break ups and fall outs, but to the grander miseries life might have to offer. Loss comes in too many forms, but at the heart of it it is love which makes it a worthwhile sacrifice.
These people, they set up a fort, hung up fairy lights, put the kettle on; they made a home of my heart, weaving flowers around my ribcage, again. They insist that I heal and I listen.
