The Love That Broke Me

Photo by: Christian Wiediger

*Preface: before you read ahead, I want you to imagine a glow stick. Close your eyes and let whatever memory comes to mind sit there. Take a deep breathe and then go ahead and dive in.

As I sit writing this, I’m glancing down and realizing it is well past my bedtime. And although my newfound love and hobby of country 2-step and line dancing is pressing my bedtime a little later every night, I was struck by the feeling to put my thoughts onto paper, a former commitment I have not followed through on in months. 

The truth is I got scared. Fear swarmed my mind, teasing every word I had written and coupled shame and guilt into one balled-up package delivered straight to my mental door. I felt embarrassed to share more. Imposter syndrome set in and doubts contradicted whether my thoughts and words have mattered at all - or are they an overshare in this world I am living in?

And now here we are, sevenish months from my last post, squirming to get out words that have been trapped in my head.

A lot has happened since I last stepped foot on this paper stage. While some things I will keep for myself, love has always been the common theme here and so I will continue to share and dive into the bits that I shy away from because sometimes sharing is being brave. Sometimes sharing is letting people in. Sometimes sharing makes us feel less alone. And sometimes sharing is all we need to finally let go.

I have had 3 great romantic loves in my life. Each one left me with lessons in love, lessons in self, and lessons in healing.

While most of my content has centered around my second greatest love - my biggest lesson in self-awareness and self-growth - I have not even mentioned my first love. 

My first love was with a man who I believe is now happily married. He was, and I’m sure still is, an incredible human. He taught me what love is and how to love. He was a pinnacle of grace and did things with thought and intention. He poured his heart into those closest to him and he gave to those that mattered most. This man is one that I can wholeheartedly say, I didn’t believe I deserved. My negation to talking about him comes more from a place of guilt and shame in the way I treated him, what I asked of him, and how things ended. A story for another time, but a pain I still work to let go of. I may have been young and naive, and still I have allowed myself the space to find the beauty in the pain.

My second greatest love was a roller coaster of emotion - dating what I truly thought I deserved. Sending myself on an adventure I could never have been prepared for. And… I learned how my strength is what allowed me to walk away. But enough about that, because that is not why we are here.

We are here for the love that broke me.

We all have that one, whether it’s romantic or other (and if you don’t, I’m grateful it’s a loss you have not had to endure), that one love that felt like our heart was dropped through a shredder. The one that felt so real - so right - and was ripped out from under us pulling us in with a current that seeks to drown. A love that ebbs and flows and follows a stream of peace until the storm sweeps in and sends waves cascading down the bank, swallowing every soul in sight.

This is the love that devoured me. The one that wrapped me up and then dropped me without reasonable explanation. But sometimes we have to operate on a feeling and the last thing I will ever do is convince a man that he should love me if he has already made his choice. That being said, I still think highly of this man and believe that he is nothing but a good person. My experience in this relationship will not take away the fact that I do think, at the end of the day, he is a wonderful human. At the end of the day, he had to do what was right for him, and I can respect him for that.

I want to take you back to the beginning. (I tried to condense it down! I promise, but believe me when I say this is the short version. You can skip to the end, but I think it’s worth the read.) (Also a little biased haha.) But, I do think it is important for you to understand. I will do my best to make this story, the truth I lived, as enticing as I can, and while you owe me nothing, I appreciate your time. So, thank you for stepping into my world for a moment.

It was two days before my birthday and on a last-minute whim, one of my best friends asked me if I wanted to go dancing that night. While we had plans to go stomp it out at Stampede (a country bar) on Friday, I jumped on the offer finding comfort in Moonshine Flats, one of the two country bars in San Diego I feel safe dancing at. 

I drove to meet Nicole and we carpooled down, taking our necessary coffee stop to fuel ourselves for the evening. What I want to preface here is tonight was weird. There was no aspect of this particular evening that was in the realm of what we normally face when we dress up in our short shorts, big buckled belts, and cowgirl boots.

The vibe in the bar was off. We strolled in expecting the same crowd only to find the half-hour past 8 with nonregulars and an extremely light dance floor. This didn’t phase us because our intention, as always, is to dance. It doesn’t matter who is around. However, the people in the bar were strange. At some point in the night, a rather large group of stumbling men flowed in. They littered the bar invading the dancer’s space on the floor and pulling attention from the lesson one of the Moonshine Honey’s was trying to give. We had unwanted conversations with several guys who were too intoxicated to take a hint, and it was when we were approached by a tall, dark, and handsome man that things took a turn.

As we were getting ready to leave, this gentleman slid into our corner and started chatting with my friend. Instantly noticing the wedding band wrapped around his finger, we were put off by what was happening. His slurred words and broken thoughts hindered our ability to understand what was going on. It wasn’t until a few minutes later we realized he was attempting to wingman his own friend. While I would love to say it didn’t work, I dated that man for 4 months.

After coming over to tell his wingman he ruined it, I asked him to stay. Basically, I asked him to defend himself, which, he couldn’t really. He was drunk. I could see his eyes spinning and confusion laced his face because why in the world would a girl be interested in him? He wasn’t looking for anything, and quite frankly, neither was I. After attempting to converse for 15 minutes, yelling back and forth over the music blaring behind us, I told him he could have my phone number if he wanted it.

Yes, in this perfect blissful world, we had an amazing meet-cute moment.

After reconfirming my admission that he could absolutely have my number, Nicole and I left the bar to rehash the shit-show turned good? that was the night. While on the drive home, my phone started ringing and I glanced over at my partner in crime. 

My first thought was what the heck?

But Nicole just looked at me and said Fuck it, because it’s that kind of night.

I answered the phone to find an endearing man on the other line checking in to make sure I made it home okay. While I normally would have been weirded out, or in today’s lingo, got the ick, I didn’t. I thought it was sweet. 

We continued to talk over the next day and by the time Saturday rolled around, my birthday, I decided to invite him to a movie.

Now disclaimer here… I had already done everything I was going to do to celebrate. I had celebrated with my friends on Friday and my dad Saturday morning. It was also Father’s Day weekend so people were limited. I was also planning on taking myself to the movies with or without friends, so extending an invitation didn’t seem like a big thing.

All that being said, I did not tell him it was my birthday. It wasn’t until we showed up, my regal pass covering tickets for both of us, that I mentioned he didn’t need to buy popcorn or a drink because I had a birthday one. A mild look of horror crossed his face. In an attempt to find the joke, he did ask if I was kidding. When I stared back and said no, he awkwardly laughed. I could feel the confusion breathing off of him. I wasn’t embarrassed I was alone although, he did mention that everything about this date was backward. After all, he was the man and he was supposed to pay for everything.

What can I say, I’m a cheap date.

After the movie, we walked outside where he looked at me and said he didn’t want this date to end, but given the day it was he also didn’t want to be selfish. While I reaffirmed that my celebrations had already been done and I had nowhere else to be, I agreed to dinner with him.

We walked to his car laughing and talking about all the emotions Inside Out 2 brought out. But when he turned the car on and the familiar voice of Jim Dale (an audiobook reader for the entire Harry Potter series) blasted through the speakers, I knew he was something special. 

This, my friends, was the beginning of the end.

After a heinous bought of 3-month situationship stints, one after another, I was hesitant to enter any formal relationship, expecting the worst. It was when he came to me after our second date with some challenges in his life that should have sent me running for the hills, that we had a very real and raw conversation. This was the communication that was missing from my previous relationships and situationships. This was what I had been looking for and far be it from me to judge someone based on who they were yesterday if that is not who they are today.

He made himself vulnerable about information that would be difficult for anyone to share with a potential partner. I sat and I listened. For two hours we talked and I let him in to my struggles as well. There was a moment, a flash, a pique if you will, of the potential of what this could be.

I ended up leaving that conversation uncertain of whether or not this was a good idea. For one, he was Navy and was leaving in the beginning of September, being restationed in Virginia - a vast consideration for my own future. Outside of that, I didn’t know if I was ready.

But I decided that despite what happened, I was going to let myself love again. I was going to let myself fall in love (if that is where it led) and grant myself the opportunity.

And I did.

It was about a month in, we were lying on his couch and he was talking about his best friend, a boat they had worked on, and some of his other family that I realized I was in love with this man. While the greater part of me screamed to keep this a secret and wait until he was ready, I didn’t want to shrink myself or my feelings to an unknown time. I didn’t want that clench in my heart and weight on my shoulders, aching to spit out words that I wouldn’t allow myself to say. You know when you want to say something and you try to hold it in but it’s almost painful? That was the feeling that sat with me for a few days.

Then, I reminded myself that this love was for me. That I wasn’t holding onto words and feelings simply for someone else’s comfort. That being honest with how I was feeling was the next step in my growth journey and knowing that it didn’t need to be reciprocated for it to be true for me.

So after a night of, we will call it passion, I looked him in the eyes and I told him. That was my blindside to him. He wasn’t expecting it, but he accepted it. I told him when I knew, and then I told him why. Two things that I believe are important in expressing this deep sentiment for the first time. It provides reassurance and gives a clear explanation that these aren’t just words, but they are meaning.

The next couple of months I was cautious of how often I said it making sure he knew there was no pressure to say it back. I was confident in my feelings and I only wanted him to say it when he felt confident in his too.

Over the course of the rest of the summer, we experienced mild downs, and had far more ups. We played and explored San Diego in his last fleeting weeks. We binged Love Island USA and laughed about more than you’ll ever know. We had fun. We met friends and family and enjoyed the company of each other.

As the summer was drawing to a close, it came time to make a decision - were we doing this? Were we doing this long-distance thing? Would it work? Did we want it to work?

Both of us had been in long-distance relationships previously and I was committed to the idea that I couldn’t do it again, but he told me that he thought if I chose to walk away, I would be making a mistake. Maybe I let that sway me. He also told me that long distance was hard for him and physical intimacy was important. Having those quality moments couldn’t be brought from afar. While I let that thought roam my mind, I thought his determination in convincing me, was the faith he had in us working and that was enough to convince me otherwise.

I did, however, believe that if he didn’t say or fall in love with me before he left, this wasn’t going to work.

But he did.

It was on, what was thought to be, his last weekend in town that he finally said ‘I love you’. We were with some close family friends of his, who I absolutely adore. Genuinely incredible people and even though I only knew them for a short time, it was such a blessing. Their hospitality to let us crash in their motorhome for a couple nights while we camped out at the casinos, and the kindness they showed me, a stranger whom they knew for only a few moments cannot be repaid.

I digress.

But it was during this weekend that he saw me with people he loves like family, that he finally told me. The moment was so unexpected for me that I wasn’t prepared. It wasn’t until we were at the winery and alone for a minute when I looked at him and asked if we were going to unpack that.

I should have known the evasive look that flickered across his eyes was the truth right there. The fact that even though he was working on his own definition of love, he thought this was what it was and that is what he was feeling and so it must be true. And maybe it was for a moment. I also think he trapped himself in finding a definition for something that I don’t think can really be defined. But I can’t speak for him.

To me, love changes. It molds itself depending on your partner. Love is different for everyone and with everyone. I believe at the bottom, love is truth, safety, comfort, communication, and kindness. Love is like a hug, warm and welcoming. That’s love for me. Pieces of this change time and time again and sometimes my definition is longer. But for him, I think he wanted it to be true more than he was certain that it was.

The bottom line, I don’t know if I ever believed him. And in the conversation that truly shattered my heart, he confirmed those suspicions to be true. 

I was babysitting my previous nanny girls when we jumped on a phone call to talk about effort and reset expectations. For me, the whole week had felt off. We had been doing long distance for a month now. We hadn’t struggled much and had a few conversations here and there. But in the week leading up to the break-up, the distance wasn’t just physical. I could feel the emotional and mental shift setting in. I could feel him putting up barriers, fending me off, and shifting me backward.

I’ll spare you the details since I have already extended this story further than expected. In this expectation reset, we decided that one ten-minute phone call and one thought-out email response a week was semi-feasible. I knew there would be times when they might go dark and that was okay. I was prepared for that. My goal was to reset expectations because I had never done this before. But he didn’t want to and even when he said yes, it felt like a no.

It was two days later, on a Monday when I asked if we were okay and he told me no that I knew the inevitable was going to happen. In a swift thirty-minute conversation, I broke. I couldn’t understand why he was walking away. I couldn’t understand why he had told me that I would be making a mistake if I did, but it wasn’t if he did. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that he had loved me last week, and in three days he didn’t. And when my curious desperate mind asked if he ever did love me, it was met with an ‘I know I care about you a lot’ confirming the doubts I had from the beginning.

See it was this conversation where I felt like I lost at love.

I felt everything in me crumbling. My barriers, my hopes, my future, my wants, my desires, and my heart. I felt each piece drifting away into unknown territories. Places I wouldn’t want to reach if I tried. Giving up felt like the easier option.

The grief was burrowed deep inside me. I took a day off from work and then when I showed up, I could barely hold myself together. My mind was going to dark corners, prepping to take action against life, to move on to somewhere that would hopefully hurt less.

Yes, I was almost that far gone. I was hanging by a literal thread. It was like the scene in the movie Hercules where they go to cut the strand of hair when Meg’s soul is sinking and is saved by Hercules grabbing her hand. For two weeks, the scissors moved towards that thread in my life aching to cut it. That’s all it would have taken.

This heartbreak broke me unlike the others. Or maybe it was the final cumulation I needed to recognize patterns that were flittering through my life. Regardless, I’m still here.

I’m still alive, breathing, and living every single day.

But I want to talk about why. 

It’s been several months since this break-up that I’m writing this, so I’ve had ample time to reflect, between that and countless therapy sessions on it. This one broke me because I didn’t see it coming. Because this was the first man I had allowed myself to fall in love with, where communication (I thought) was more open and honest than I had experienced in the past. Because someone told me they loved me, were in love with me, and then took it back. Because someone fought for me to stay and then just as quickly gave up on us, which felt like they were giving up on me. And oh the triggers that fired off.

This love broke me, not because of the specific individual, (I believe my response would have been the same even if it was a different guy) but because of the hope for something that I have been looking for, the close proximity of it, and the sudden disappearance of everything in an unexpected moment. 

This love broke me because I needed to be broken.

Let me explain. I don’t think any of us are broken. I think broken is a term we use because we don’t always know how to define the feeling of being shattered without saying… we are (fill in the blank). But we aren’t damaged goods, or broken items, or suffering souls. We are people just trying to figure it out one moment, interaction, and experience at a time.

Something I have learned recently is that failure is redirection. It is the universe saying ‘no, not this, try again.’ It’s not a negative it’s a reminder to lean in to who you are and what you want or need. So in romantic love, where I have been aching for something deeper and with more meaning and consistency, I was losing myself.

My second love, he challenged me in a way I never thought I would have to face, but he didn’t break me. My experience with him taught me how to develop myself and work on becoming a better version of myself. To embrace my strengths, like my empathy, but to do it with conviction and boundaries. I won’t give him credit for the work I have done, but he inspired the movement to find the activities that bring me joy and the things in life that make me, me.

When I say this love broke me, I mean it like a glow stick. You know when you were little and you got a glow stick and you couldn’t break it? Everyone else’s seemed to crack so easily and work but when you tried to snap yours to create that soft glow that somehow lights up a room, it was faulty in some way. This feeling of being left out of the party would be all-consuming and make me feel sad. Now I don’t have a specific memory, but I know this happened once or twice where I would have to give that glow stick to an adult. They were able to make it glow with ease. It just took a little extra push to snap it into place - to get that light to shine through.

Yes, this love left me feeling shattered in a million pieces on the floor, but this love also opened my eyes to me again. To who I am. To what I love. To who I want to be. To my friends and my family and the people around me. To the little and big parts of me. To the growing part of me. This love finally cracked the stick and for the first time in a very long time, I have finally felt my glow again. Even though I still feel the lingering pain and residual effects of disappointment and hurt, and yes, even question the will to live, I also have found a purpose bigger than myself. I have found the path and direction I have been looking for. 

Being broken doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it does take a hell of a lot of strength to ride the wave out of that feeling of pain. I won’t dismiss the feelings that come with it because I know them well. That pain is very real and very true. What I will say is this:

You are stronger than you feel right now.

You are more brave than you have ever given yourself credit for.

Your resilience has reached uncharted territories.

You are becoming a better version of yourself every single day whether you see it or not.

You are surrounded by love even though you can’t feel it.

You are a gift that cannot be replaced even when you feel like trash.

Your heart is mendable even though you’re struggling to find the beat.

You are an inspiration to more people than you know.

You have peace, standing at your door waiting for you to let her in.

You have the key to your life, and even though that key feels locked and buried deep in a cavern at the edge of the world, you are the only one who can reach it.

This world makes no promises. Pain is part of the cycle and it is a topic thrown to the wayside. We are expected to feel alone and figure it out on our own. To keep our burdens and secrets to ourselves. And while secrets might sometimes be fun, they can also hurt. That’s why I share my story, because if it makes one person feel less alone, then I can leave this world, one day, having touched at least one person’s heart, and I’m good with that. 

I see you, I hear you, I love you, and you are not alone.

You, my friend, are not broken, but you are finally finding your glow and I am so proud of you.

Love always,

Riss