How do you mend a broken heart?

I wish I knew.  But the question isn’t really how you mend it, but how it got broken.  Were you careless, giving yourself away to one who didn’t respect you?  Were you deceived by one who understood how to manipulate and use your good intentions?  What made you so unacceptable that despite all the comforts and affirmations, ultimately you just weren’t worth the effort?  Are you really so inferior to the next who has sped to the side of your beloved, piling pain upon pain?

These are the thoughts that seep in through the half-awake moments of my life, those moments when I forget to act, forget to buckle up and get on, forget the words of those who do care and are helping me on my way to a kinder space.  It’s all enormously hard, for a few releasing hours I find myself thinking I had a lucky escape, then I’m assaulted by the memories of the two of us in a private world of apparent companionship.  The realisation that he has moved on to someone a whole lot better than me, and I am just one of his notches, hurts.  Just plain hurts.

But I refuse to give in to the despair, most of the time.  True, the suicidal thoughts have resurfaced, not in melodrama, but in cold compulsion.  As I know and recognise what they are, I make a deal with myself to live with these feelings for a set period of time, giving them a chance, and by this deal, and talking about them, the grip of their power is diminished.  I know little of what others have done at times like these, but I know I just live with these phases, the empty desolation, and it does, in time, lift.  Or at least, it has always so far.  But I’m not in total misery, there are comforts and pleasures, albeit encased in solitude even with others present, so I think those 'I can't go on' phases will ebb away as they have before, but I would be lying, dear reader, if I said they had yet.

I find myself grateful to friends who listen to my ramblings, who liked him then but now can see clearly the worth of the man, and are so disappointed in him.  The comment oft repeated was ‘there was no sign of this at the time, it has been his subsequent behaviour that has so disillusioned’

Of course, there will be his version of our story, with shards of truth amongst the deceits.  But ultimately he didn’t love me nearly as much as I loved him.  Didn’t forgive, didn’t understand anything but his own point of view, and most importantly, was a coward.  One thing you can never say about me, dear friends of the blogsphere.  I have many faults, I know, but cowardice is not one of them.

Will I do all this again?  Part of me really hopes not, but as my aunt said brightly in the car a few days ago ‘Oh yes, your optimism will triumph over experience and you’ll do it all again’ 

How do you mend a broken heart? You don’t, you just hope the scar tissue is strong enough to survive the next onslaught.