In the beginning, everything is great with your boyfriend, or girlfriend, or POI (aka person of interest). In a relationship you guys may be going great, or not, but either way it’s perfect because everything you’ve ever wanted is in that person and you’re totally invested. You may be planning a future already, talking about where you’d want to live, and how your separate careers would work well with each other. Or maybe, you’re getting to know someone but it’s already established you’re into each other (or so you thought). They make sure to check up on you everyday, you both hang out all the time, they like every one of your pictures on Instagram without missing a beat and are always checking your updates on Snapchat. They just seem 100% interested.
Everything is going great in your love life until, BOOM, your significant other has been caught Facetiming a girl from his past and you realize they’ve been cheating, or they just suddenly decide to break up with you. Your POI begins to fall back, and their attention shifts elsewhere or maybe you reach that awkward conversation and realize that you were totally into them but they just were not that into you. There are so many ways, shapes and forms of a heartbreak and they’re all just as hurtful.
It may feel like everything around you is crashing down. That person, whether they were “yours” or not, was special to you and all of a sudden you have to change where they stand because they hurt you. You’ll go through all of the stages of a heartbreak, denial, depression, anger, and acceptance. You’ll cry, you’ll want to deny their existence and you may even try to ignore it. You’ll lay low in dumps, shoveling ice cream in your face and burying yourself in a Netflix series, or you may want to make them jealous and rub someone new into their face, but what no one tells you about heartbreak is that it will happen often, EVERYONE experiences it and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
It was brave of you to even take a leap of faith into considering someone worthy of your time, efforts and most of all your heart. Another thing that no one tells you is that you don’t necessarily have to be with someone long, or even be with someone to feel a heartbreak. The only requirement needed for someone to hurt you, is for them to matter to you. The title or time is subjective, and some people open up their hearts sooner than others. It doesn’t make you stupid or fragile. So often emotions are looked at as a display of something abnormal that we forget it’s actually normal. Our generation has become so accustomed to not showing feelings and only attributing feelings with weakness. Showing someone you’re interested is considered being thirsty. You have to play a game to get someone to simply show that they’re interested in you. Don’t even think about crying when you do get hurt… WEAK!
The interesting part about this mindset is the acceptance of hiding something that’s very real and natural for a human being. When you get your heart broken, in a relationship or not, it’s because you put some type of investment and trust into a person who did not uphold the standards you set for them. It’s a huge disappointment to find out that the person you thought was great actually is not all that. It’s disheartening to know you wasted time, feelings and maybe more, on someone who didn’t value you as much as you valued them. Releasing how you feel about that does not make you weak, but it in fact makes you strong to even show your emotions. I know some of you are probably thinking “yeah right”, but seriously, being able to show emotions is a trait of someone who is strong because when you’re able to show what you’re feeling, you’re opening up and being vulnerable. You ever meet a guy or girl who simply cannot show any emotion, or get close to someone simply because they “can’t”? Chances are they know what it feels like to be hurt and revisiting that feeling terrifies them. You went for it, despite the risks and that makes you lionhearted. We are so desensitized to human emotions for various reasons now, that no one tells you it’s okay to let it out.
Lastly, no one really explains how vital heartbreak is to your growth. You need to experience the bad to know what’s actually good. Most importantly, as painful as it may be to accept rejection or the loss of a friendship/relationship in the process, you have to experience hurt so that you can grow. Without trial, there is no triumph. Closing yourself off to your emotions or experiences or not going for what you want only stumps your growth as a person. You have to go through it to get through it, and this heartbreak is not just a distraction or useless, nor is it your fault. It’s a piece of the puzzle to your testimony in life and you have the ability to use it to better yourself or to give the person who hurt you all the power by letting it destroy you. Let your emotions run free but don’t let them be your demise. Use your heartbreak in your craft, whatever that may be; whether it’s music, drawing, writing, or sports, turn the negative into a positive. Lastly, don’t forget that if you’re the one hurt, they are most likely the one who lost out. So make sure you thank the jerk who hurt you, and keep your head held high because ultimately, they have made you better, stronger, and wiser.