How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?


And how can you mend a broken heart?

How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?


It's a beautifully haunting song. I have to admit to being a romcom fan (because I know they always end well!) and this song is used in Notting Hill when Hugh Grant is trying desperately to get over Julia Roberts yet tormenting himself by watching her movies.

I have a broken heart. It was not broken all at once but chipped away at over time. A few tough breaks in my younger years weakened its structure and, because I struggled to mend it, it continued to fracture. I went to counselling to fix myself and was told I would never be fixed. Deep in my heart are the wounds that time won't heal. My heart will never be as good as new. It can't even be classified as 'in good condition'. I have to accept that inside of the strong exterior everyone sees, there is a fractured, splintered, battered heart that barely knows how it is still beating. 

And now here I am wanting to find someone to spend my life with. Wanting to build a future with that special person the romcoms promise is out there waiting for me. I am scared to write this but I think I have found him. But now I need to really use it, I see that my heart is in terrible shape.

He touches my heart and it hurts. Those wounds haven't healed. I have worked hard to reprogram my mind (and published a book on the process!) but I have done little to heal my heart. In Japan when they break pottery they don't throw it away. They mend it with gold. They piece it back together and the liquid gold runs between the cracks and seals them tight. There is no attempt to hide the cracks. They celebrate them. 

I want to mend my heart with gold. I cannot pretend the cracks aren't there. I have been doing that for over a decade and it has not got me to where I want to be. I have fallen in love very few times in my life. I mean really in love. My ex-husband is not one of those times which is why I can still love him. Because when I fall in love, I fall hard. It is too intense and unsustainable. It is a ticking bomb that always ends by blowing up in my face. And my mind curses my heart for being so stupid.  For trusting someone to take care of its fragile broken self. And another break appears. And so my heart never heals. It only fractured further.

But not this time. This weekend the special man put his fingers deep into a wound and I screamed. It hurt so much. I got angry with him and then cried myself to sleep. But instead of cursing myself, my mind told my heart a different story:

"You did nothing wrong trusting this man. You are a heart. It is what you are meant to do."

The following morning I called him. He had no idea what he had done. I tried to show him. And he tried to learn. I know he will do it again. Inevitably as he explores my heart he will press too hard. I hope in time he will learn to recognise when he touches broken flesh and be more gentle. Maybe he will learn where the wounds are. Maybe, just maybe, he will help me pour gold into the cracks. 

How can you mend a broken heart? I don't know. But I have to try. 

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