Heartache

Pain…It hits you sometimes, when you least expect it. A word that stirs a memory you’ve tried to repress, a date on the calendar that used to hold some significance, a song that carries you to another time and place…

And when it does, what do you do? Do you stoically veil the pain with a smile and hope that the smile will turn real in time, or do you let the weight of the memories crash into you and run you down?

Maybe you just have to live through it. Let it wash over you before it leaves you, hopefully taking with it some of the hurt, the anguish and the disappointment, so that the next time it strikes, the intensity would have dulled. And you’re left with something resembling hope, not for what is gone, but for the things yet to come.

You realize that maybe you were destined to be together, but only for a while…That though your time has passed, it has left behind with you, answers to questions that used to haunt, and lessons that perhaps no one else could have taught. And finally, you understand that having your happiness so contingent on another person is what eventually breaks your heart…and that it should never have to be that way.

 

Pain…There are no shortcuts to overcoming it, and there are no quick fixes. Maybe you just have to swim through it and do your best to keep from being sucked under. And wait and pray for the wound to heal and for your spirit to be restored.

But then again, who’s to say?

Because sometimes, you don’t recover. You simply survive.