Heartbreak

Someone once asked me a strange question.

“Caroline, how do you deal with heartache?”

I really do not know. Do you even deal with it or does it deal with you?

I read somewhere that the term “heartache" is actually a thing. When you are experiencing the emotions your lungs and air ways physically close up, and that feeling that emulates a ton of bricks on your chest is actually your chest closing in. Your heart ACTUALLY endures pain, and it ACTUALLY feels like your heart is breaking, but any girl/woman beyond 12 could have told you that.

I don’t know how you deal with it. I don’t know how I deal with it. I don’t cry incessantly, I just cave in. I try to not let such a negative feeling consume me but mostly I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I lay in bed, other times I go out… I have no finite method. Recently, I was listening to a song while driving, and I burst out in tears. Is that dealing? By the way it was “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran, so I mean, my crying was on totally on cue.

When I am in the mood for “real talk” I ask my mother. Her advice is so on point its frustrating. She tells me what I need to hear not necessarily what I want, which would be something like “go out there, drink, smoke, shag heaps go good looking, brooding men (all of which are valid ways to deal by the way). But no, her advice is alway says something along the lines of “this too shall pass.”

One time she was honest enough to say “I don’t know what to tell you…your situation is pretty fucked.” Another time she pushed me to go to London to see a guy I had thought that I liked simply to see if I actually had feelings for him or if it was the distance that was getting to me. She’s cool like that – its just, like anyone, mothers don’t always know what to say. But I guess, all anyone going through heartache really needs to hear is that it is all going to be okay, because after all, it is…right?

Remember your first heartache? Slightly? At the time that dickhead who did not pick you for the year 6 public speaking team caused the worst, most irrefutable pain EVER, and now it is a distant memory. I think that’s what my mother means when she says “this too shall pass”, and sure enough it does.

Being heartbroken has its advantages though. Your friends are extra nice, sometimes they bring you treats (because you don’t buy enough for yourself), total strangers are suddenly qualified psychologists who listen to you, lending a shoulder to cry on (or is this just what I do), and when you are having a cigarette, you never get told to go outside, because after all, which heartless prick is going to kick out someone who is crying hysterically and intensely looking at the cigarette flame at the same time?

So how do I deal? I don’t know. I just do. But what I look forward to is having my own daughter come up to me with her head in her hands and her eyes full of tears telling me about the dickhead who wont pay her any attention, and I will tell her “don’t worry, this too shall pass.” I cant wait!