On Forgiveness After Heartbreak

Because I don't want to feel like this forever--like I am drowning in an apathetic sea and my heart has seashell shards stuck in it--I tell myself to forgive the woman who broke my heart.

(I am bothered by the language: the woman who broke my heart. Did I give her my heart instead of sharing it with her? If I did, that is on me. If I didn't, did I expect her to be as careful with my love as I was with hers? Was that realistic? Is it fair to blame someone else for breaking something that was mine to safeguard?)

* * *

Today, tired of crying, I tried to outrun the fever behind my eyes. Driving to see a friend, I jammed my foot on the gas at every green light, swerving deftly around cars doing the speed limit, screeching to a stop at red lights, drumming my hands on the steering wheel, every atom of me wishing I was in a time machine or spacecraft instead of a stick-shift-less 4-cylinder wagon with over 150k miles on it. I would set the clock to the moment of my death, or set the coordinates to heaven, so I could stand at the foot of God's throne and shake my small fist and tell him exactly what kind of motherfucker I think he is. But every time the light turned green and I hit the gas, I only moved forward in a world where my heart is still broken and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

* * *

An intuitive friend, hoping to fortify me post-breakup, recently told me the angels love and favor me.

Today, sitting in my car, music turned up so loud I wouldn't know if a cop wanted to stop me or an ambulance needed to pass, I wondered how the angels could favor someone harboring so much hatred in her heart.

I hate being human. It is supposed to be a great gift, a grand blessing, a god-given miracle. But to look at the way we are made--without shells, without thorn, poison, fang or claw--is to know the truth. We are cursed. We are made to take the fall, stick, burn, and tear. We are made to be hurt...and to heal...again and again, made to endure countless stings and fractures, to lose skin, blood, and tears--and get on with our day. To be human is to be vulnerable to pain.

Sometimes I think my ex wanted me to be more than human. She wanted me to transcend my body, to slip inside her skin and vibrate at the same speed of her cells, to see the world as she saw it, to think as she thought, to feel as she felt, to displace mere human empathy with an ability I did not possess. She wanted this, perhaps, so she would not have to suffer the fate of being human in a relationship with another human. Which is completely understandable.

Sometimes I wish I had been less human, more rock or wind, something devoid of heart.

* * *

Which story would have to be true for me to forgive her? For me to forgive myself?

• She didn't know she didn't have both feet in, or couldn't get both feet in, until she knew. And then she told me right away, with great sorrow and a sincere wish that things were different.

• It's not even about me. She wants to be the kind of person who can leap in with both feet, but she is not there yet-- not for me, not for anyone.

• I focused too much on her words and not enough on the truth shadowing her words. I was willfully ignorant.

• Divine intervention. For some reason that only that motherfucker God knows, we aren't meant to be together in this life, and there is nothing either one of us can do about it.

• She is sorry. Or she is not sorry. She is merely human.

• She loved me the best she could. I loved her the best I could.

* * *

I wanted her to be more than human too. The day she broke up with me, citing the equivalent of irreconcilable differences, none of which made any sense to me, I wanted her to slip into the channels of my mind, to take a seat in the center of my heart, to think as I thought, to feel as I felt. 

* * *

If I let go of my anger and hurt, if I forgive her for being human, if I forgive myself, what then? Will my love for her disappear? If it does, how will I survive that loss? If it doesn't, how will I survive that burden?

I have survived other heartbreaks. I have forgiven the women I have loved. But I cut them all out of my life to do it. If I do not forgive her, will she be part of my life forever? A pulsing memory, a ghost for me to love in a haze of sadness and anger?

If I do not forgive myself, I will continue being human, but I will never know love again.

* * *

I'm asking that motherfucker God for grace. I'm asking him to help me let her go and to help me to get over the fact that I am human--that everyone is human. I'm asking him to take my pain. To take her pain. And to do this with god-speed, which is much faster than any speed I can go.