How many times in your life, have you heard the words, “It’s going to be okay” or “I’m here for you” or “You know, nothing’s going to change between us”?
And how many times have you said it in your life?
How many times have you meant it?
But in the end, none of that matters, because it’s not what people will know – not what people will remember and then come to forget. The question is: are you seeing it through? How are things going right now?
Knock on the door of your heart, and ask, “Dear, how are you?”
Love and life has come to change us. Love and life has come to bring us up. It has come to hurt us, to destroy us. It has come to shed light, but also to plunge you into darkness.
Like everything in life, there is a line. Each person defines their own line differently. And we tip from side to side, back and forth. Some fall over and stay there. Some get back up and cross over. But most people rock, tip on their toes, forward, and backward, as every wave of emotion washes over them.
That line separates the good and the bad, the positive and the negative… the happy things and the not-so-happy things.
Right then, I wasn’t quite sure where I was. But something about the white puffs fluttering across the floor and the throb in my hand was quite an indication that I was not happy.
It had finally given in. After five days of calling in sick, sleeping and crying, then crying back into sleep, starving myself and not even remembering when I last bathed, it finally gave in.
Berry – Berra – lay with her chest ripped open, her insides exposed, leaking, bleeding – just like me.
I still didn’t understand why – why Berra had such a stupid name as Berry, why was my Berra who was meant to be a girl, a boy, why I had been punching a teddy bear, why I gave up a week of salary and why – why he couldn’t have been better?
I stared at Berra and felt no satisfaction.
I’d thought I’d be happy, that at least I would get some sort of angry rush that shouted “yes!” and felt a little bit better, liked I’d gotten even. I understood clearly that hurting other people won’t make you feel better – but this was a teddy bear, so bear with me.
When he gave me Berra, he wanted me to name it. In my head, it was already a she. As I said “Berr –”, he, with this sort of excitement that was difficult to resist, shouted “Berry!” And so she was since then Berry, and not a she, but a he.
That’s what he did to me.
(Not that way – I’m a girl.)
He changed me, denied me of my nature, my desires, my being, myself… And I was so smitten, that I hadn’t realized I was knocked on to the floor, left without an inch of consciousness, a shred of awareness.
That’s when I knocked on the door of my aching heart, and as she answered, her tears spilled over with mine and my denial was over.
Breakups are split second decisions. They are never well-planned out, unless you stopped loving – that is always the exception.
It is that moment of empowerment, that moment of recognition of failure, when you realize that this isn’t what you want, that “I’m not going to do this anymore”. That is when it is decided, and nothing can stop you – but yourself. You and your fear – it’s rocking you back, washing you out.
Isn’t that what brings up the old get-back-togethers? That old heartbreaker?
“This is the rule. Those are exceptions. You are the rule. You are not an exception,” quote He’s Just Not That into You, about those people who get back together and then live happily ever after.
They say don’t break your heart, don’t waste your time.
So why was I doing this again?
Why, in the slowly withering world, was I still in my PJs, stuffing ice-cream in my face, watching soaps and ignoring the phone after lunging for it when it rang every 5 seconds and seeing that it wasn’t him?
Because I was in a phase, of mourning, after the denial had been set apart. Berra, now and forever Berra, sat next to me, with her beady eyes, questioning my insanity as I stopped to speak to her every now and then.
Now, I wasn’t crazy – just sad.
“Why am I doing this, Berra?”
She didn’t answer me, but I saw. I saw the stitch on her chest, the mark of my mending.
Berra was healed – I wasn’t. I healed her. So when the phone rang again, I was going to allow someone to heal me.
Keeping yourself busy is a wonderful way to get past a breakup.
That’s why I was back at work.
No matter how boring it was. No matter how dreadfully unpleasant it was in here. No matter how much my colleague, Gillian hated me. No matter how much of a knucklehead my boss was for not having fired up so far after missing a week of work.
I write. Articles on things like inner peace and happiness and beauty and that kind of bullshit – that I was clearly incapable of writing in this moment of my life – in a magazine called Asterisk*. It wasn’t huge, but it sold fairly well. My pay wasn’t huge, but it was enough for a typical New Yorker to get by.
My boss was a softie, which explained why Gillian was still around after so many years. She poured coffee on my desk “accidentally” every morning. And when I arrived back at work, it had been apparent that she’d been doing it while I was gone as well.
She stared – glared – with these eyes of steel as I ignored the muddy stains on the papers and envelops on my desk, setting Berra on the right corner and telling her, “Okay, we’ll get by today together.”
Generally, keeping something your ex gave you is highly... idiotic. They say, throw it all out, give it back, whatever. Don’t. Keep. It.
I stood by the stove and stirred the pot of soup. I looked over Berra. Because of her, I’d gotten past 10 days without crying, and made it to work every day.
But something was nagging at the back of my mind. He might not have been fuzzy and warm – or maybe he was, but the thought now is out of question – and didn’t have beady eyes and cuddly ears… but Berra was a reminder.
I didn’t want to throw it out; I didn’t want to give it back.
That evening, a little girl looked up at me with a toothy, sincerely pleased grin and said thank you. I was a stranger in a park that just gave a little girl a teddy bear – people could’ve thought the worst, but right then, I didn’t care. As I watched her run of, I leaned back and the sun streamed down on to my face through the leaves. I began breathing in air that smelt distinctly sweeter somehow. I smiled like she did, free and contented.
Love hurts. Ouch… right?
“It’s called a breakup because it’s broken.”
If someone blocked a river, what would happen? It would break the obstacle, because its rush is strong enough. If someone corked a bottle and turned it over, what would happen?
When it’s broken, when it’s blocked, when there is no way to flow through… do you think it’s still the same? Do you think it’s still love?
But love like God, works in mysterious ways – as love is one of the most beautiful creations of God.
I stayed in the park until night fell and the wind became cold. People rushed past and the bright lights of the city were ignited. I just sat there.
If you’ve heard one of those stories where you see old couples showing the most gentle, loving gestures, even the really small ones – I saw it. And I cried. I curled up, my knees up to my head, arms around them. I rocked myself and I cried.
But I wasn’t sad anymore – I was relieved.
I wasn’t going to be one of those couples who stayed together and were constantly “trying to work it out”. I was going to get through – on my own. And I still had a chance. I still had a chance for that – a chance in love.
“I’ll always be here for you!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t see it.”
Who says that?
Are you expecting them to apologize? For hurting you? What are the chances? Really little. But don’t expect them to apologize for not realizing earlier that you’re not what they want. You know what – don’t even think about it. Because they’ve made you realize that they’re not what you want.
They are a fraction of it. A moment of it. Something that fuzzes out and fades away. A shadow, something that doesn’t stay and isn’t real.
So here I was, walking hand in hand with two of my best friends. Next to them, were all my other friends, all arm in arm, hand in hand. They screamed in laughter and cursed in happiness. People who were and are who they are. We’re just heading down the same streets we’ve been going down for the past years together. Our footsteps brought us underneath a light. The shadows cast over.
When I saw that shadow disappear from in front of me, to underneath me and then behind, I laughed. And here were the people who don’t question my sanity because of one laugh – whether or not they get me. They’re the people I want to spend the rest of my life with.
When that moment came, I finally opened up my eyes.
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