What Heartbreak Taught Me at 32

I’m 43 years old now, but I look back at this diary entry, and it still resonates with me, so I’m adding it to my posts. Hope it resonates with you as well.

I’m afraid of the dark. I’m 32 years old and I sleep with a night-light on. There’s a part of me who wants to stay single for the rest of my life and then there’s a longing to fall in love again. I do want children. I give decent advice, but Lord knows I don’t follow it.

I’ve only been in love twice, but I have an addiction. An addiction to, what many could argue, the most wonderful feeling in the world; an emotion that grabs hold and invades the body like the disease it is.

Infatuation. 

As a good-looking unattached thirty-something woman living in Hoboken, I’ve met more than my share of men. Most of these men have made me feel like my heart was fluttering out of my body. But a few of these men are the same ones who caused my heart to fall to my feet.

There are three types of heartache I’ve experienced over the years:

First, there’s type one. This pain feels very similar to guilt. All feelings have been lost, but the depression arises because I know I’m about to cause my other half a great deal of agony.

It happens—people fall out of love. But the pain from the breakup comes not from the giant stabbing in my chest. Rather, it comes from knowing that I am going to hurt someone I used to care for deeply and there is no getting around it. Otherwise, I am going to hurt whoever it is more if I prolong the inevitable.

Then there’s type two. This type of pain is deeper but relatively short-lived. My belly aches, my heart is anxious, and I cry a little, but I know I can get over it because I have been there so many times before.

I would say most of my break-ups fall into this category. The level of pain varies based on the feelings I have with my ex and how deeply I am invested in the relationship, but in the end, we both know it is never going to work. Leaving, no matter the reason, is still hard though. My eating habits don’t necessarily change, but there are bursts of crying for a few days or weeks, usually at night right before bed and first thing in the morning, but I am able to move on relatively easily.

And then there’s type three. This one is the kicker—no other heartache compares. It feels like I entered the seventh layer of Hell and am about to burst into a fire of tears and sobs at any given moment. Those bursts of sadness always hit at inopportune times, too—in the middle of a client meeting or on the train or at dinner with friends. 

I’ve only experienced this type of heartache once, and it changed me. This pain feels like someone jabbed a knife right through my belly button and just gradually turned it in slow, slow circles.

I could not stop crying. Daylight? What’s daylight?? I didn’t move from my bed in a week.  Everything reminded me of my ex. A sweatshirt. The vase of flowers on the dining room table. The cheese grater.

Not that I was going to eat anything anyway.

But the thing is…

Time healed all.

And along the way, I learned two very important things.

The first—I stopped stressing about getting married again. And I’m not saying I don’t want to, but I am no longer worried about it.

Unfortunately, though, there is one caveat.

Children.

But I have a plan: when I’m thirty-seven years old and haven’t met anyone I can live with for forty years (which may prove to be difficult), I’m going to make sweet love to a sperm bank. 

I do talk to my friends about this. Some give me a weird look, and say, “Oh, Michelle you’ll find someone, don’t worry” and others, “You? With child? Yeah, okay.” However, if I put as much effort into a child as I do at the bar, I’m confident that I would be a stellar mom.

People say everyone should have a five-year plan. That’s mine—get drunk every night for the next five years, then on my 37th birthday, have a child.

And the second thing I’ve learned along the way: spend money on experiences, not items. I can’t remember the last time I purchased a pair of shoes, but nothing will ever replace the unplanned trip to Atlantic City at midnight that one Wednesday night or the trip to the Grand Canyon with its spectacular views or the night I spent watching movies and eating popcorn with my mother. Those will live on in my memory forever.