What I Learned After the 2nd Heartbreak

In the movies, the one after the “bad guy” is supposed to be the happily-ever-after. That’s where the movie ends, and so we assume, that’s how life is too. 

When I was with my first, I used to think “how lucky am I? To get to live for the rest of my life not having known heartbreak.” Because this is “it.” Because I never could imagine how any human, could love, be broken, and love again. That just wasn’t me. I didn’t do well with goodbyes, and I truly didn’t know how I would recover, let alone love again. When I loved someone, I would love them for eternity. This was me at 17, all the way to 21.

Come 22, was the “rainbow after the storm.” You’d think it’d end here, because “that’s how it’s supposed to be.” Right? You get the prize after the hard work, the remedy after pain. I lived in bliss, until the time came, when I started feeling the fear creep behind me, knowing that this just may not be my last heartbreak. I held on, because no, that couldn’t be me, couldn’t be my story. With all the suffering, my happily-ever-after is supposed to be here. If not, that’s just not fair.

But it was fair. Because when you don’t heal to the core, heal the wounds that are past the punctures of the people who hurt you, who are just mere bandaids covering the true pain you’ve always felt inside, then the universe will keep putting you through lessons, until you learn what you need, to not repeat them again.

So here I am, after the 2nd heartbreak at 26. The heartbreak I swore I wouldn’t survive. The one I said “Universe, if you dare put me through this again, I just might die.” Well, I am not dead. Heartbreak is proof that I am privileged to be very much alive.

So I wanted the Universe to know how much I learned. 

I learned that our heart can beat in layers. There can be pain, underneath healing. Old love under new love. I learned that with hard work and time, we could close doors to memories. We could dissipate feelings. You could force your heart to stop beating, even when you’re not ready—because what you feel and what you know, collide.

I learned that we are never guaranteed that this heartbreak is the last heartbreak, that this love is the last love. Even in marriage. That if we use relationships as the “ultimate milestones” or “checkpoints of happiness”, life will be long and tiring. 

I learned what it means to not be able to love unless you’ve lost. How could you love with your all, when you’ve never lost it all?

I learned what it feels like to love when you don’t love yourself. You will always feel empty.

I learned what it looks like to love when you are not ready. You will be messy, you will be cloudy.

I learned that our spirit always knows best--our heart, our soul. It’s our minds that tell us otherwise. And in the end, you know very well what the voice was pleading you to do from the start.

I learned that in the wrong relationships, we will just be playing a part. And not showing up as ourselves. I don’t know why I said the things I did, why I was the way I was. Why I said I didn’t like this when I really did; when I said I was bothered by that, when I’m not. Why I played a character that was molded for me--instead of just being me.

I learned that the very habits and interests they had that you thought you didn’t think much of, are parts of them that somehow come with you. You find the new you, doing things they did, saying things they said, and liking things they liked. You wonder if you were this way all along, or was it a gift they left behind, for you to carry on? And sometimes you will see the new them, doing things you’ve always done, that they never did with you. Is it because of the someone new? Or, the parts of you that you gifted them, to carry on in the absence of you.

I learned that, even in the midst of your broken heart, even well-knowing the outcome would be the same, after you’ve let the pain transform you, you will have wished to go back in time, to at least love and hold their hearts a little softer; love them a little better. Even though you know you loved as hard as you could, even though you were hurt too. You can still wish you had been kinder. So they’d have more love to carry on.

I learned that even if you feel like you lost, you both built each other in ways that could only happen with you two, to be better versions of yourselves, not just for the next, but for the version of yourselves that you are meant and called to be.

I learned that it is hard to build a relationship based on connection and emotions. That a strong foundation needs two individuals, who are clear with who they are; their visions, purpose, and who they want to be. And from there, if my personal path aligns with yours, and our journeys can facilitate growth for one another, then we would have a strong foundation to accept our similarities and respect our differences. And to grow together.

I learned how silly it is, that the very love I had been longing and searching my whole life for, was the love within me from me. The one thing I didn’t want to have to do, because it was hard. It’s hard because like a relationship, you have to be committed to choose to love you everyday, through the rain and the happy days. And it’s easier to love another with rose-colored glasses, even through the red flags and all, than love someone you believe to be so unworthy: You. 

So here I am after the 2nd heartbreak: broken, healed and healing.

But more so, chiseled, reborn, and evolving.