Heartbreak Apologist

A wonderful thing that once happened

I am thinking about the second season of Fleabag today. I am thinking about a wonderful thing that once happened. I am thinking in particular about that scene where the priest says it will pass.

Many years ago, when I still wrote fiction, I started a story with the line: “the thing I hate most about grief is that I will move on.” Another essay I never finished had a line about how, when you are going through a difficult time, people tell you that things will be fine. As if that is not the problem. The problem is exactly that.

There was a heartbreak from a few years ago (all of them) that felt so difficult, I could not remember what life was without the distraction of this unescapable pain. And yet, I think even within the pain, despite its incessant need to draw attention to itself, I hated that I would move on. That I would eventually find a way to continue the performance of life as if it hadn’t just all ended for two weeks while I cried and felt the inexplicable chill of heartbreak.

I’ve always thought that maybe the PR for heartbreak was unfairly negative. What is heartbreak if not evidence of all that is most wonderful about us? Heartbreak is the thing that tells us of our capacity for love and for vulnerability. I think it was last year or the year before that my friend told me how heartbroken she was to have broken up with her boyfriend. She said only good things about him and how much it hurt her and hurt him and hurt her to hurt him. She was so sad about the affair. And I really understood what she meant.

A few years ago, I listened to an episode of Modern Love that rewired my brain a little bit. I regret to say that now I remember nothing else about the essay, not the name, not the author; only the idea that struck me. The writer had just gone through a divorce, and a friend had just learnt about it and said to her: “I did not know you were unhappy.” She replied, saying, “I was not unhappy, I just thought I could be happier.” This became my argument for the hopefulness of divorce. Don’t get me wrong, divorce is a very sad thing, as is heartbreak. But some divorces contain also the bravery to think you will find love again. And isn’t that hopeful?

I was telling my first girlfriend about a sentiment I picked up from the Before series of movies. My first girlfriend and I are very close, in part because we dated. After we broke up, we both went our separate ways to experience our heartbreak. We only found our friendship again, maybe a year later. In 2022, 5 years after breaking up, we broke down on a call together. I was having a difficult time in a new relationship, as was she, and we knew each other in a sort of unique way in relation to this matter. We knew what heartbreak felt like and how scary it is when you feel it impending. Both of the relationships we were in at the time ended within three months.

In the before series of movies, two strangers meet and find that they have one of those rare connections that you only find a few times in your life.

“I guess when you are young, you believe that you will meet many people with whom you’ll connect with, but later in life you realise it only happens a few times.”

Whenever I find myself in one of these rare connections, I cannot help but imagine my future alone. I don’t imagine myself with this person with whom I connected. Instead, I imagine the frail, aged body of a man with many rare connections that passed him by.

My ex knew what I meant

“I have met a few people and thought about how I was never going to feel the way I felt with them ever again in my life”

Every month, I make a playlist of songs I discover during the month or songs that accompany my experience of the month. Sometimes, these playlists are themed. This month’s playlist is called the heartbreak apologist.

I think heartbreak deserves slightly kinder PR. Sad as it is, painful as it is. It is a beautiful thing in itself. It is eclipsed in beauty only by the thing that makes it so painful. Heartbreak is the thing that says to us that, before it all went sour, it was actually quite sweet. Maybe there’s somewhere in us where we can remember and hold on more tightly to the sweetness.

What is heartbreak? Isn’t it a wonderful thing that once happened?