Stephanie Says (Leaking her heart on paper)

Dragging along Anchors (Part 2)

Reading this post first Dragging along Anchors (Part 1) is helpful for the following to make more sense.  

A couple summers back I got my heart broken. I feel like that is putting it mildly. With a wonderful community and after overcoming some major hurdles, I was determined to be strong and get over it the “right” way. My idea was to cry, get it all out of my system and mourn the loss of him. Then finally, mourn the loss of my self-confidence and self-worth, which has much as I would hate to admit it, usually accompanies any sort of major break up for me. And then I reasoned, the healing would begin and I would be all put back together again. I was determined to do all of this without resorting to negative coping mechanisms like self-injury or drinking, especially since I was surrounded by some extraordinary individuals who were walking with me every step of the way. So in the middle of the night, I would go and sit by the water and cry, for hours. Or I would sit on my bed and cry, for hours. This happened for a couple of weeks and then I decided, “ok, I’m all done with being sad, I’m ready to move on.” And so I did. And months and months later, maybe even a year later, I could not figure out why I was not ok.

I know this is a really lame analogy, but perhaps a little relatable, for those who feel the need to slave away at the gym. Lately I have been doing the “weight loss” mode on the elliptical machine, not necessarily to lose weight, but just for the challenge. It is intervals between a low resistance and low elevation and a high resistance and high elevation. It shows little dots on a graph as to where you are at on the sequence. Five dots on the high mode and five dots on the low mode. And let me tell you, the high mode kicks my butt. I’m always thinking “move stupid dots, move!” so I can go back to the low mode. I try to move faster so I can get through the sequence faster. I did this for weeks when I finally noticed that regardless of the distance I had travelled by the end of the full cycle, it still took the same amount of time. No matter how fast or how slow I travelled, I still had to be at the high or low points for the same set intervals.

This made me realize what I had been missing. I cried and cried and cried, right at the beginning and I rationalized, well since I cried SO much, the pain must be out of my system, and I don’t have to take the weeks or months or years to heal. That is not the case. I must grudgingly admit, that it takes time for wounds to heal. I won’t necessarily say “time heals all wounds” because it takes more than just the seconds ticking by, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t do it overnight. This is different then my previous post, where we carry anchors for months and years, ignoring them the whole time, thinking they will disappear. This was me knowingly wearing the anchor for a little while and then deciding when my heart was ready to be free and therefore it was. As if it were that easy. So I dropped the anchor and kept walking and didn’t look back. But it still haunted me, years later. If you drop an anchor and leave it there, it doesn’t disappear either. I think there is a balance, where you have to acknowledge the pain and carry it for a while. And no matter how fast I ran, it did not mean I had to carry it for a less amount of time.

I have just experienced a breakup recently, like this past week, and I’m acknowledging that no matter how many tears I have shed, it is not over yet. I can mourn all of the memories that come up in my mind consciously, but it does not even begin to access the bank of memories that are locked away. The one’s that I locked away purposely to keep them safe and sacred. Those I am not ready to think about, and look at them from the eyes of someone who is no longer in a relationship.

No matter how much I prepare, it is going to be all the little things that get me. I feel fine at the moment, maybe even a little cathartic, but I know it won’t stay this way. Someone will ask me if I’m ok, I say “on and off.” It is the small discoveries that make it hard. After removing everything from my room, my computer and my phone in preparation for having one of the hardest conversations in my life, I still find things that remind me of her. I notice the absence of my good morning texts, which were always essential to my day since I am not a morning person and she is. It is like emotionally stubbing your toe every couple days, or in my case every couple hours, that is the healing process that you can’t escape from by running through it. That is what takes the time. After removing everything, I still find some leftover valentine’s candy in my cupboard from the heart-covered package she sent me in the mail. I turn around to find the handwritten recipe on my fridge from when she cooked me dinner from scratch. I find the shirt she made me in my dirty laundry, because it is one of the first things I wear when I hang up my fresh clean cloths. 

It comes in waves that you have to weather through, not just sail through once and be done. It comes and goes with the tides, and sometimes you have to stand there, and sometimes you have to be on your knees weeping. Sometimes you run against the tide and sometimes you run towards it. And somewhere through it all you realize the burden is a little less heavy, and then one day you wake up and it doesn’t hurt anymore. You can see that person, or hear someone talking about that person, or check out that person’s facebook without your eyes burning and without the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. One day, it gets easier. But it is not up to me, it will be up to my heart. Not particularly fond of this notion, but maybe this will give me the opportunity to write again. It goes back to feeling as if when I’m depressed I take time to reevaluate and reexamine my life. I plan on learning something, and still hanging on to the hope of “if it is meant to be.”

In reference to my first post, It is not healthy to drag along an anchor and a burden of a broken heart, all the while being in denial that our hearts are still hurting. At the other extreme, it is not healthy to drop an anchor in the sand, and walk away, and think that if you leave it behind, it won’t somehow follow you.

Carry it for awhile, and you will know when your heart is ready to be free. You will be able to move in reverent contentment, be able to unlock the anchor and place it into the box of memories and belongings and gifts you shared. The pain will become a valuable memory because enduring the process was one of the many things that shaped you, if you allow it to. Instead of tearing you apart, instead of drowning your sorrows in alcohol, or using other people as an emotional release, simply feeling the pain is a journey. Not a pretty journey, but still a story to tell when all is said and done. Why would I avoid those lessons? If I am going to have to endure a break up, I want to be able to say I learned something from it.