Dear Heartbreak,

Dear Heartbreak,

You are unavoidable. No one can escape your grasp.

You are unplanned, relentless, and consuming.

You do not discriminate, and you will not be avoided, even if delayed.

Dear Heartbreak,

You change every time I meet you.

You have entered my life in more ways than one, but always with a swift motion, stealing my sanity and my hopes no matter how much I try to hold onto them.

I met you when my dad cried out to God my junior year,

and again when my mom moved away.

I met you when Muzzie died and Mr. Wyatt followed.

I loathed you when I realized how much space I had been reserving for your lies and your desperate need to be my priority.

I didn’t expect you at all when you came in August. I was sure I’d seen the last of you for a quite a while. But you don’t have any regard for time.

Dear Heartbreak,

you’ve taught me a lot. You’ve raised me, in a way. I know so much about who I am because I met you.

You confuse me. I don’t know if you are a good thing or a bad thing, and I’m sure you are almost always a mixture of both. You’re not all bad, but you hurt me more than I ever thought was possible.

You aren’t only reserved for one kind of love; you live in the houses we inhabit, the jobs we take, our fear of others, and the loss of empathy.

I see you in the faces of displaced children, the hearts of grown men that were never taught how to cope, the growing nature of divisiveness, and the up and downs of growing up.

You are not shy. You creep in when we don’t expect you, and sometimes you send a note to warn us you’re coming. But we don’t always read your letters. Sometimes we believe they were sent to the wrong house.

Dear Heartbreak,

I know you’re growing me.

I know you’re intentional.

I know that there is purpose in the pain and freedom in the growth.

But I wish you weren’t so heavy. I don’t always know how to hold you.

I often think that I’ve learned how to handle you; I put you to the side because I can’t look you in the eyes. But you aren’t patient and you won’t be ignored.

Some days I see the beauty in your actions and I know that you were born out of love; other days, I resent that you need to be the center of attention in every room I walk into. After all, you are meant to be felt before you leave.

I know that you are imperative to a good life; that you are necessary in order for us to love unconditionally. I still wish I could live harmoniously with you.

You gossip with anxiety, and you share a bed with depression, but I know you’re priority is the person you’re visiting. You have a way of making anyone feel seen, regardless of how they wish to be ignored.

You have a purpose. I know you do.

Dear Heartbreak,

I know you might not move all of your things out for a while, so I’ve decided how I can live with you.

I can live with you if we can both accept that you aren’t a permanent resident.

I can live with you if you’ll be patient with me and you won’t come storming in at night.

I can live with you if you can help me see your beauty on the days I cannot see.

I can live with you if you will remind me that you’ve been here before, and you left me better than you found me.

I can live with you if you give me a chance to process; I do not move on so quickly.

I can live with you if you can invite love back in; you were not meant to live without her.

I can live with you if you promise to give me space when I can’t bare to look at you for one more second.

I can live with you if you can understand that I never want you when you arrive, but I’ll be grateful for what you taught me when you leave.

And I can live with you… if you promise not to swallow me whole.

I know that it’s difficult for you to share and I have to learn how to accept your arrival. But I can’t live with you when you blare music at 2 am or you multiply as the hours go on.

I won’t survive you if we’re always together.

I have to work and love others well.

I have to recognize your role in my life and know that you aren’t going to live with me forever, even if it seems like it.

And I have to learn to let you go, just as much as I wish you’d leave. Because I have to do both in order for you to find a new home.

I don’t want you here, but I have a hard time understanding how to decorate once you’ve moved out.

I don’t want you, but I’m afraid of who I’ll be when you walk out the door.

Dear Heartbreak,

We were meant to meet, but our story is still being written.

I know you’ll be living here for a while longer, even though I thought you’d moved on. I’ll try to be a little less resentful of your slowness to go,

because I realize your slowness is often a reflection of my own.

Dear Heartbreak,

I know you’ll always leave a piece of you behind, to remind me of things I’ve lost and love I’ve gained.

I know you’re sticking around for a while, but let’s agree to be patient with one another while we live together.

I hope we can learn to see the best in each other.