On moving on after heartache
I suppose when we think of heartache we think of exes, and the way we change after a relationship ends, like a slow, reluctant tide. What a limit, though, to impose on our hearts, to think that only love and romance can bring them to breaking point, to imply that it is only relationships that they really care about. There will be, of course, more things that you care about, and it’s a silent fact of life that there will be times where these things we love dearly turn into a different, much more painful thing. The potential for sadness in our lives is always present, following us around day to day like a helpless toddler wobbling at the edge of a tantrum.
The thing about sadness is that to move on from it, you really have to know it. It’s the same curse that afflicts the children in Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee — as soon as you find love and affection for this unusual space, it suddenly has to disappear. It’s harder to find that love than you’d ever expect and is more difficult each time. It’s in our nature, after all, to clutch onto whatever resistance we can muster in the face of change. Most often it’s the change that breaks our hearts, the transitionary period which feels tough and unnegotiable, so we hopelessly try to put the world back to the way it was before it had to change, squeezing things tight in our hands in the hope that tragedy can be reversed. Why would we want to let go, and let change run free, doing whatever it wants to our lives?
Heartache takes its time with each of us. All people are different, and we are each our own unique platform, a new stage where our heartache learns to perform. Some things can be forgotten quickly and quietly. They can become distant memories, limited to crop up guiltily as we try to fall asleep. Every now and then the heartache ballet is in town, and all of the lights are on for two performances a night, seven days a week. Pain, brought about by big, sometimes sudden, change lingers like perfume on a collar. Severe or not, heartache can’t really be moved on from; it’s never truly gone. Instead, it just whispers itself away, gently losing its potency until, for some reason or another, it is suddenly drawn back.
Perhaps, on a strange level, we enjoy the heartache. The twisted idea that it makes us sympathetic, that it earns us attention, makes it even harder to let go of, and to accept that we are moving on. But moving on is such a wonderful thing. While some pain may never truly leave you, it creates space within you. Space scrubbed clean from the sadness where there’s room for you to grow and change. We’ve all seen the transformations, the before and after breakup pictures. It’s a phenomenon that even I, without consciously trying, found myself subject to. It makes sense, though. The change that lends itself to heartache can shake the way you see yourself. Your edges are removed from the blur of familiarity, and suddenly what you want becomes obvious. Shuffling in tightly like a pack of playing cards, your real wants, hopes, and desires, are easily seen. You have no choice but to change. It’s the only bit that makes sense.
I’ve heard lots of homespun remedies for heartache. If you search “how to get over a breakup” on Google, over 70 million results will appear — a patchwork quilt of magazines, YouTube videos, and even newspaper articles, each promising to have the magic answer to moving on. Jogging, cleaning, journaling, dyeing your hair — they’re all just methods of keeping busy, of passing the time. Time, after all, is the only thing I’ve ever know to really numb a sadness that might feel incurable. As the cousin of change, time is known to heal all wounds, and there’s something remarkably comforting in that. You don’t have to do anything, really, there’s no way you can mess it up. Just sit, and wait, and time will sort it all out for you. Heartache is inevitable, and it can’t really be escaped, but it can be pushed away every now and then. And if you’re really lucky - forgotten.
Lou Willmott is a London-based writer, currently studying for her MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. She specialises in both long and short-form prose, and her work often uses vivid colour and themes of nature. A fan of art, she regularly draws upon pre- Raphaelite pieces for inspiration. She’s happy to read anything but particularly likes Margaret Atwood and Francoise Sagan. When she’s not writing Lou is a ballet dancer, flautist, and Pinterest addict. You can find her on Twitter @louwillmott