Finding Your Way Back After Heartbreak
The thing with memories is you can warp them to satisfy your heart and soul. What I mean by that is you can remember what you would like to remember and forget what you would like to forget. Though, lately I have been remembering all the memories I would like to forget and it has been screwing with my ability to move forward.
Since I have been meditating often and practicing yoga more frequently, instead of harping on recent memories that hurt, many later memories have been visited. I have been trying to remember who I was pre-Summer and pre- Luc. Love in all forms can sometimes destroy self-identity, so now, I have to rebuild.
The other day, my mind brought me back to the summer of 2010, a few weeks before I was to leave for Istanbul. A lot of things were changing that summer and I had to say goodbye to a lot. I knew that I was leaving to a place where everything would be new and that was comforting to me, but I also knew that there would be no coming back to the home I was so familiar with.
My parents were selling the house that I had grown up in, the house that I had created all the foundational memories in. It was the only home I knew. There was paint splattered on the hard, dark wooden floors illuminating the purple and red stains of stupid adolescence. There were chips on the corners of the door that had been slammed so many times in frustration and anger. There were the ghosts of memories of parties and first kisses and proclaimed love. I had to say goodbye knowing that for the first time in my life, there would be no constant variable.
From that moment on, everything would change. Now, looking back, I could see how much of an understatement that was.
Image: Jordan P via Flickr
Since I was leaving, I decided that I would make a mad dash to create as many beautiful memories in my favorite city as I could in the allotted time that I had left. One night, I found myself with two friends that I had just met that year at the Coney Island Burlesque Show. It was summertime, and summertime in Brooklyn is by far the loveliest time.
After the tastefully raunchy show, we took the historical F and R train all the way to Bay Ridge. I had already begun to feel nostalgia for the city I was parting with. It was the kind of night where it didn’t matter where we were going because alcohol would ensure that it would be epic. Epic it was, as we took over the local bar we visited.
This night is important because even in the memory of it, I can see the confidence and happiness emanated throughout my pores. It was contagious. We swam in a sea of floating napkins and beer foam dancing to Madonna, Michael Jackson and all the other classics that seep into your veins forcing you to move your body. The kind of music you couldn’t resist, even if you wanted to.
The party couldn’t end, and it didn’t even after the last person left the bar. We were the only people left. And the bartender. Of course, we had hours to befriend him, and he loved us, even allowed us behind the bar and taught me how to pour drinks. I had always wanted to be a bartender, there is a certain allure to it, a window to all the deepest secrets and desires of an individual.
Alcohol is the key to so many things, and a bartender is the keeper. Wasn’t it Ernest Hemingway who said, “Drinking is a way of ending the day?” So there we were, it was almost sunup and the veil of secrets had been lifted. I can’t remember how we got to talking about love, but isn’t that always the subject that seems to sneak its way into a conversation unexpectedly?
The bartender asked me if I would still go to Istanbul if I fell in love and was asked to not go for the sake of it all. It was a good question, one that really wasn’t relevant because I had never really been in love but I knew the answer without hesitation. No, I replied. Of course I wouldn’t stay. What is love really but a means of holding us back? My independence and freedom was far more important than the comfort of loving and being loved in return.
At that moment, I wasn’t blinded or paralyzed by such an emotion. The bartender was surprised at my response and his rebuttal was, but how could you say no to love?! At my core I am a hopeless romantic, I know I said that I had never been in love previous to Luc, but I have had many “loves” that infatuated me with lust and desire. I have had many moments where my heart stopped with just looking at a stranger. I have had many moments where time stopped as my body merged with that of another and it seemed as though it was the greatest love of my life.
In reality, it was merely an infatuation. Age has proven that a fact. I told him that true love, would really conquer all, and if I met someone that I felt was worthy of a lifetime together, he would understand who I was and how much I needed to leave. I knew what I was worth, what kind of man I deserved to love and to love me back. I wasn’t willing to settle for anything else. It was the most beautiful time of my life.
Why is this memory so curious to me now, four years later (although it really feels like a lifetime)? That night is the epitome of my identity. The fact that I refused love for the sake of traveling, for the sake of curiosity, for the sake of adventure, for the sake of everything I held dear is who I want to be. If I had to pinpoint a time in my life where I was truly happy, it would be that summer.
Looking now, it is kind of ironic I named my daughter "Summer". Maybe she’s to be my motivation for change. If I had to pick a person for my daughter to look up to, it would be that woman sitting on the other side of the counter intoxicated with confidence and ambition and dreams. I knew exactly who I was and where I was going. Even writing about, I can feel that person trying to fight her way past the pain. In part, I know that is who Luc fell in love with, and in loving Luc and loving my daughter I thought that person couldn’t exist anymore.
They say that in trying to fix a broken individual, what typically happens, is that you shatter into a million pieces. In searching for an identity, in the rubble, I found a piece of me that is the key to it all; the way back to an identity. I can’t go back to that night, I can’t really expect to fully become that girl again, because I am older now and definitely wiser, but I can use that piece of me to rebuild, and when I am finished putting the pieces together, I am hoping to create a masterpiece. One that cannot be destroyed and one that I, and only I, am satisfied with.
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