There’s not a single person you’ll encounter today who hasn’t had his or her heart broken, badly, except for young children (and sadly, not all children are exempt). No one would ask for pain. No one would wave it down and say, “Here, pick me! Cut me through to the core, go right for my jugular, so I can learn something, so I can understand despair, and open and soften and walk forward with more information about myself and other people.” And yet, that’s what pain does; it teaches us. Sometimes we would really give anything not to learn the lesson, but we don’t get to choose.

I’ve had all kinds of heartbreaks, some romantic, some not, and one that brought me to my knees. There are things any of us could look back on and say, “I’d give that one back if I could.” Time lessens the pain, but I’m with Rose Kennedy on this one, it doesn’t heal the wound. The wound becomes a scar, and the scar marks the searing place where you bled out any idea that you were in control, that your hopes or your prayers or your willing it to be so would make it so. I guess we all need to be humbled at some point, to grasp that the world is spinning and we are not controlling it. Sometimes I go sit by the ocean to feel reminded that I can no more control what’s coming than I can go out into the water and hold back the waves. You might as well just be awed by the whole thing. There’s beauty in recognizing your smallness, but also your vastness. You could curl up in a ball, or you could see that everyone is in this together. The stories may be different, but the feelings are universal. Your power in life lies in your response to what you’re given.

You have control over your outlook; that’s a tangible thing you can work on if you need to. I think the world is an incredible place, full of loving, beautiful people, and the kind of love, if you’re brave enough to pursue it, that will expand your heart so much you’ll wonder if it’s going to burst. I also know the world is a place where that same love I’m describing makes you vulnerable. It requires your participation, your willingness to go there, even though somewhere you understand that “there” could be ripped from you. Those are the choices, though. You live in love, or you live in fear of living in love. Funny, huh? But not the haha kind of funny.

When your heart is breaking, there’s no point trying to hold it together. You simply let it break. It won’t break and break and break into nothingness. It will break and open and the pain will be brutal and you may struggle with the simplest of things for awhile. Breathing in and breathing out. Finding the motivation to get out of bed, or eat, or shower. If you’re lucky, you’ll have at least one person who understands they can’t fix it for you or heal it, but they can make you a meal. They can sit with you, or read to you, or simply hold your hand. We need each other; we need to see each other and understand we could all use some kindness. You never know what someone is facing, whether they cried themselves to sleep last night, or just lost someone they loved. We can be so hard on ourselves, and so hard on each other. People seem so quick to lay on the horn or get up in arms about someone else’s mistakes. We all make them. We all face loss. We all know heartbreak and despair. If we didn’t know those things, we wouldn’t recognize joy, peace or the gratitude of those moments that make it all make sense. Move from love, and move toward love. Breathe in and breathe out. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Sending you a hug,

Ally Hamilton

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