Heartbreak

My wheelchair broke, and so did my heart.

Swee-teas… I hope this finds you with a warm drink, and a body that is not as broken as mine.

Let’s start with the good news:

• I finally finished my new website: teawithhb.com !!! Thank you to my patrons, past and present, for making this a possibili-tea! Please share it far and wide :) I hope the resources on chronic pain and disability help you and your friends and family!

• My sister-in-love visited from the US and we had the best time playing games and swimming together. To be loved by Lexi is the greatest luxury.

• I hosted my own poetry workshop for the first time with The Poetry Orchard, a collective I have created with some of my bestest buds. It was based on Barbie and we had a wonderful time, sign up here so you can join us for future workshops!

This time last month, I skipped writing a letter because my mind was not in the best space. My MRI results came back showing more endometriosis, and I had been crying almost every day about my upcoming operation. Winter is harsh towards me at the best of times, but since then…

Since then, my darling grandmother figure has died (she was the best friend of my biological Gran who I never knew due to dementia). Maureen, I miss you so much, thank you for encouraging me to write. I’m sorry I didn’t finish my poetry anthology in time to dedicate it to you. I still will. I am hosting poetry workshops on the internet now. You’d have loved it, you’d be so proud. I hope you can see this. I hope you know how much you meant to so many, how much you impacted me. I love you.

Since then, my power chair has broken (third time in less than six months), so I got stuck in the revolving doors at Ikea and accidentally shoplifted a monkey. I had a pain clinic appointment where they told me yet again there is no ‘magic’ to help me, and even the physio/acupuncture referral will take months. How do I do another operation without painkillers? I don’t know!

Since then, my heart has broken too. On the same night as the breakup, I came down with serious stomach flu and fever, as well as an endometriosis flare up, and my period starting just when I thought the new medication was finally working. My face is red raw from crying, and I didn’t think I had any tears left. I don’t know how I am writing this let alone functioning in this amount of emotional and physical pain. Well, that isn’t entirely true, I know how. I have the best family and friends in the world, that’s my karma for being brave when I don’t have a choice.

Here’s the thing about heartbreak- everyone will tell you it gets better, there’ll be someone else, they know this because they are all on the other side of it. They found someone better than their first love. You can’t argue, you know it’s true, they are proof. But that doesn’t help one bit- because it feels like it will never ever end. And part of you doesn’t want it to. All of me doesn’t want it to, because I don’t want to forget how much I loved and was loved. I don’t want anyone else.

Maybe it’s worse when it’s mutual: both of us still love each other but there was nothing more we could do. Love wasn’t enough. Maybe that’s the best because then I can be glad that my first love was amazing, and I don’t regret anything.

I am trying to be grateful, I am trying to avoid feeling sorry for myself, but honestly? I hoped I could at least avoid the pain of heartbreak. Silly girl, wanting to be a writer, you know they have the most tragic lives. It’s a rite of passage. I am a connoisseur of pain. There was no way to avoid this no matter how hard I tried.

All I can take comfort in is the clichés: It’s better to have loved and lost. It’s worth wearing your heart on your sleeve. Time will heal. But if these sayings were a comfort blanket, it’d be made of knives and thorns, because it’s just a reminder that a relationship you worked on for almost four years is over, forever. And the one person you want to call about how sad you’re feeling is the one person you can’t talk to at all.