How You Know When Your Broken Heart Is Mended

The ending of any relationship hits you hard.  When you are still in love with your partner and wish the relationship to continue, then it becomes harder still.  Who am I kidding?  Let's face it, when your partner tells you that things are over, that they do not love you any more, that what they want from life is different to those things that you want, that is completely and utterly soul destroying.  It's a gut wrenching, heart shattering moment, and that moment can last for an exceedingly long time.  That moment feels like it will last for an eternity.

When your partner tells you it is over, it is not just that you lose that person from your life, there is also the loss of love that you must face.  Other unwanted feelings and sensations will come your way as well.  You feel a sense of rejection, you feel that you are not worthy of love, you feel yourself as being not good enough for love, and you will feel that you are worthless.  None of these are of course remotely true.  But it doesn't matter how many times you are told that, or by how many people, you will believe it until the pain begins to subside.

When my last relationship went wrong, it was my then girlfriend who broke it off.  It was her decision to say enough is enough.  I had loved her deeply, I had spent much of my time devoted to her, doing all that I could to help and assist her with various projects and the problems that she encountered during our time together.  When it came to the end, my heart was still very much attached to her.  Physically, we were no longer together, so that helped immensely with our separation, but mentally, that was a whole different ball game.

It's not just the mental attachments we make though is it?  It is the attachments that we make with our hearts.  It is the love that is the hardest to let go of, that takes the longest to heal.  From the moment that the relationship breaks up, the healing process begins.  It does not feel like any healing is taking place for some weeks, or even months, but subtle changes are being made within you, within the subconscious you.  One day, you wake up and you know that your heart is mended, that the pain and heartache you have been living is gone.  It is over.  It can take many months, or even sometimes years for that the healing process to be complete, so much depends on the intensity and the longevity of the relationship and the love.

For me, my heart means everything and that means that it suffers greatly at the hands of love.  When I fall in love, I fall very deeply and I love with great passion and intensity.  I cannot do anything else because to do so, would be to betray my heart.  There is no half love.  Love is an all encompassing feeling that you either feel, or you do not.  You cannot think you are in love.  If you think you are in love, then you are not.  Love is a balls to bone emotion of the greatest intensity there is.  When my relationship broke up last November, it hurt.  I had to deal with the feelings of rejection and the pain of being pushed away from the person that I loved.  I wondered how long it would take me to get over this love.  How long would it take for my heart to be fully healed?  Today, I think I found the answer to that question.

On the boat this morning was a girl called Vanessa.  At first, she was just another customer, another soul who was coming diving.  As I gave the dive briefing to her and the other two divers in the group, I suddenly saw Vanessa for the first time.  She was looking up at me as I spoke and as I looked down at her, my eyes saw into hers and I became lost for a moment.  I don't think that I paused or hesitated in my dive briefing, but I knew that something significant had happened.  And my heart knew it too.  During the morning, I was my usual self with all of the customers but I knew I was attracted to Vanessa, in a way I had not felt for a long time about someone else.  Nothing happened between us and the story ends there, but for me, it marked a significant event.

I could not have felt that attraction to Vanessa unless my heart was clear of my ex-girlfriend.  That is the way in which my heart works.  I cannot betray my heart and so I can never betray anyone, if I have feelings towards them.  This moment on the boat with Vanessa told me that finally, my heart has healed itself and that perhaps, I am now ready to move on and that, if another opportunity for love comes my way, I know that I will be ready to embrace it.

So, how do you know that your broken heart is mended?  You know it, when you look into the eyes of someone and you find yourself falling into them, and you realise that you could become lost in those eyes unless you pull your gaze away.  And, at the same time, you feel a jolt of electricity in your heart.  That jolt is the thunderbolt of love.  These are the signs that let you know that you are ready.  And because of this, today, I finally know that my heart is ready to love again.  Today, I feel ready to walk the path of love once more.  Now I ask, who will be my companion and when will she arrive? 

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