Quotes For Healing Broken Hearts [Continuing]

7

Bittersweet things I'm learning about losing someone I love

1. You do not ever get to be the same again.

I think the hardest part of losing someone you really, truly love for the first time is that you do not ever get to be the same again.

When we mourn, we often forget that we did not just lose them, we lost part of ourselves too. The person we could have become with them, and the future that we now don't get the chance to have are gone. It is hard to be left behind, a part of you buried with them. Everything changes in an instant you cannot control, and you are left to deal with the aftermath. You change and you long to keep them alive. You long to keep that happy person you were when you were with them alive too. You long to keep the dreams that became a part of you when you were with them. There is a never ending longing to be with them again, to be the person you were when you were with them, to experience those warm feelings of what it was like to love someone and care for their lives more than your own, for the very first time.

2. Life keeps happening even if you need time to grieve.

I could not think in years after I lost him. Seconds, moments, minutes are the only thing I can handle. Anything beyond that I did not dare to think I could control. I could get through the moment I was in. Then that one would pass and another would come, and I would get through that moment too. For weeks my life passed in moments. Then suddenly it's a month. I still feel the same: still aching, still can not sleep, still holding back tears any time I wasn't alone. The entire universe continues to operate on days, weeks, and months while I operate moment by moment. Time just changed for me.

I have to say I think it is cruel that the world does not stop when one needs time to grieve. No one teaches you how to lose someone. No one tells your friends and family how to help you through it. No one tells you the 5 stages of grief do not come in order, and they do not have a statue of limitations. Work still has to be done, deadlines still have to be met, and the universe does not care one bit that you are only a fraction of what you were. It is not easy, it is not fair, but it is true.

3. The bad days do not ever really go away, and that is okay.

There are days my lungs refuse to take in air. The alveoli protest, and the muscles refuse to expand and contract and relieve me. Days where I gasp and ache for air that only comes in short insufficient bursts. Days when breathing is no longer the autonomous, thoughtless process it should be. Days where I plead with my head and heart to stop thinking long enough for me to inhale, exhale, and repeat. Bad days happen no matter how long I have had to grieve and cope and process.
Some days like that are marked on the calendar — anniversaries, birthdays, holidays. Sometimes I can even plan around them. I have learned it is okay to make time to miss someone on those days. It is perfectly reasonable to take a step back and be sad, because it IS sad. Even if it happened a long time ago it still matters. If it did not matter it would not hurt in such an almighty manner. It is a blessing to know this pain, to have had someone who made saying good-bye so impossibly hard. As the Doctor once said, "The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't always spoil the good things and make them unimportant."

4. People do not always know how to act around you.

When I told someone that I've lost him, she just looked at me with sad eyes. When other people found out, no one really said anything to me. A teacher might pat me on the shoulder in what I am sure was an attempt to be consoling, but just as no one teaches you how to get through it, no one teaches your friends and family how to help you through it, either. It is incredibly sucky to understand and accept that, but even the best-intentioned people may not know what to say to you.

5. You join the club.

When you have lost someone you love — I mean really, truly loved — you start to notice grief in other people. I know I do. Even something as simple as uttering the sentence that you lost your person, the reaction you get can tell so much. I can tell from how people respond and the look they get in their eyes if they have lost someone too. You start to recognize each other like you are part of some terrible club. If I had to put the look in their eyes into a word — even though there really isn't one — it would be tired. Grief can make you so terribly tired. You get so sick of there being so much gravity weighing down your heart. You get tired of waking up in the morning and realizing after a second that what ever happened to you wasn't a nightmare. Sometimes I'm still getting used to being this person who has this truth, who wishes she knew what to do to with it, who wishes she never had to join this not-so-exclusive club.

6. You are never ready for big changes, even if you think you are.

You may think you are ready for a big change but I do not think things hit you the exact way you expect — even if you have had time to prepare for it. When the big moments come, I do not think it is possible to prepare. In fact, I believe a lot of times the big moments are not planned; they happen in a second that was supposed to be normal. There is no big flash of light or warning sign to make it distinct from every other ordinary moment. Then the moment that should have been ordinary goes wrong, and all the pieces you put back together fall down again. You just have to learn to adapt.

7. The universe is not messing with you personally.

I know the world can treat you badly. It is hard and cold and it does not care about you personally. It is hard not to take it personally when bad things happen around you. I lost a few good friends in a short time span, lost my family, and lost my innocence and I could not understand how one person could be expected to cope. In fact, I did not know how I could be expected to not become a basket case under the circumstances. I wanted to blame the universe for putting me in an impossible situation, but I realized the universe was not doing this to me personally. I do not believe the grand ever-expanding universe is concerned with the temporary speck of dust that is my life. If you are alive then live, and take solace in the fact that everyone has moments where it feels like the universe has a personal vendetta against him or her. The universe may be screwing you, but I do not think it is personal.

To Justin, who taught me so much more than the things on this list. I love you (present tense). "I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful. " -John Green

-N