Warning Signs of Heartbreak: At a Young Age

Hello all,

Welcome back to our beautiful, chaotic, and messy shores. Thank you so very much for taking your time and energy to sail these violent seas back here to me…I appreciate it greatly. I hope you’re feeling healthy, happy, and well this week. Personally, for me, this past week was one of the more better ones I have had recently. Looking at the last two journals or so, I was not feeling like myself at all and was starting to feel a little bit discouraged and honestly intimated by life. I was also going through a brutal writer’s block period during these two weeks and couldn’t find the right words in my mind to fully express how I was feeling…until this week. A couple days ago I was looking through Rupi Kaur’s self-healing and writer’s workshop book, “Healing Through Words”, and came across an exercise that I, personally, found a little bit interesting…

The exercise we’ll be looking at for this weeks journal also comes from the section, “breaking”, within her book and has to do with explaining heartbreak to a 5 year-old. When I first stumbled across this exercise, I honestly didn’t really understand the meaning of it…and maybe I’m still unaware of it, but as I challenged myself to write this exercise out, this is what I found: Sometimes heartbreak can be so extreme for a single human that it completely rewires their nervous system…think about that for a second. Imagine loving someone so beyond, with everything you have, and then suddenly they leave you…your heart not only goes through the most insane withdrawals, but your brain does too as it loses neurotransmitters. Depending on how tumultuous the breakup is, a neurological withdrawal can take place within ourselves which can lead to us lacking multiple important chemicals within our brain, which is where feelings of anxiousness, depression, and isolation come into play. Personally, at 22, a heartbreak is something still very hard for me to both go through and understand, so the thought of having to “explain” the complexity of this to a 5 year-old definitely seemed insanely challenging…until I started writing to it. If I had to explain heartbreak to a 5 year-old, I would say:

I drove to the park after it rained, got out of my car, sat on the bench, and stared at my reflection while crying today. With my AirPods in my ears and my hands gripping my hair, I feel a tap on my leg. Glancing to the side, a ball sits at my feet, I can see a little boy out of the corner of my eye running up to me. “Mister! Mister! Could you roll my ball back over here, please?” But, the cracking of my heart, voices of my thoughts, and screams of my tears were too loud for me to hear. Placing my hands over my eyes to create a sense of darkness so that I may think clear…I feel a tap on my shoulder. Wiping my tears before I turn around, I’m greeted by the little boy; “Hi mister…I’m sorry if my ball hitting you made you cry”. “No, buddy”, I responded. “Your ball hitting me didn’t make me cry…in fact it kind of made me laugh, which I needed…thank you for that”, I continued saying. “But mister, why are you crying? I know today wasn’t a perfect day…but the sun is out now, you should enjoy it and play”, he says to me. Before I explain my heartbreak, I take a minute to pray that he will never have to experience pain like this at such a young age…unlike myself. “You’re right buddy, today wasn’t a perfect day…but now it is…remember how for most of the day the clouds covered the sun and created a different type of shade that was just a little too…dark? The sun to my heart has also gone away, and the rainbows aren’t reaching far enough to wash me in color, and without color, how can I have fun?” “I understand, mister,” the little boy says, running off, but still kicking the ball my way. 

After writing this out, it dawned on me…I believe the point of this exercise was to help explain heartbreak to ourselves due to how complex it is. Of course as we get older, our emotions change, we develop coping mechanisms, and start attending therapy to get through heartbreak…but how can we get over something if we don’t fully understand it? I am going to be honest about something, it took me years to get over my first heartbreak…and I truly believe it was because I didn't understand it all…and I still don’t fully understand heartbreak, but I don’t think any of us fully grasp the concept of it. There’s so many layers, so many versions, and so many stories that play into the subject that truly make it one of the most complex…

Thank you so, so much for taking your time and energy to surf along these costal waves back here…to the thoughts of me. I appreciate you, your mind, your heart, and your tears more than I could ever truly express…thank you so much for your constant support and motivation. Here’s to our endless poetic summer…

With great love always,

M.H. John