“I’m looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love”  – Carrie Bradshaw
Let me just start by saying that I wasn’t always such a disillusioned wreck. I used to be able to concentrate on one thing for more than five minutes without my mind wandering. In fact, scrap that. It doesn’t ever casually wander; it strides purposefully away to the one and only thought that seems to consume my wrecked brain. Usually to the question of “why?” Why the hell was I such an idiot to wreck the singular most amazing thing to ever happen to me in my entire 22 and a quarter years? I’ll never know the answer but I#ll sure as heck carry on to torture myself over it until the day I’m freed from my own melancholy.
Given the recent attention to the poor souls who have supposedly died from a Broken Heart in the past few years, one could be forgiven for thinking our media had gone utterly mad. But, is a broken heart really such an ordeal so terrible that it can cause depression and even invoke death? Before I myself had encountered the utter devastation and grief of dealing with a broken heart, I must admit I was of the ‘get on with it and stop moping’ league. I wouldn’t say I was cold hearted in the slightest, I was far from it. I suppose if you have never felt True Love, you would never understand how much it can consume your very being. Although I do think Sarah Millican made a very good point when she raised this: “If a woman dies and then a week later her husband dies, he hasn’t died of a broken heart….it’s clearly because he can’t cook!”
My views on the ‘League of Mopers’ changed soon after I broke up with the man who, in my eyes, was “The One”. There is an unmistakeable feeling of elation and glee once you have met the sort of man that makes your heart flutter so crazily, you could be forgiven for thinking you were going into cardiac arrest. Now, I have never been the type of woman to sit and fantasise over my perfect husband in an obsessive way. Of course, I have thought about my wedding day, children and home, but never once in my life did I feel that I would meet the person I’d want to share all of those things with.
I’d had a previous boyfriend throughout my college years and there were often times where I felt as giddy as a kipper to see him and even got the old familiar butterflies, but I knew deep down in my heart of hearts, it was not meant to be. He wasn’t Mr Right, but then again, I couldn’t imagine ever being without him. As usual, the pattern followed, I went off to University and grew into my own independence and we drifted apart. For a few months I was upset and often felt that maybe we had made a mistake in our parting, but after a second failed attempt at salvaging our relationship, we knew we were flogging a dead horse and decided to part for good on friendly terms. This was the first time I’d ever experienced heartache and I knew for damn sure I never wanted to go through it again.
I have been accused of not opening up my heart fully in my blog entries and of holding back what I really want to say. But now it’s time to be brave, stand up and truthfully say what’s on my mind. Adapt or die yes? So anyway, in all honesty, I could not see myself ever wanting to date another man. I thought it too much hassle emotionally and made a rule to myself to never let anybody close to me again; it’s all too easy to start to depend on another for something you are quite capable of doing yourself, like going to the supermarket or making a cup of tea (tea is always so much better when it’s made for you). I kept this unspoken rule up for quite a long time. And then I met D. I was truly smitten. I remember on our first ever date, he told me there was “something about me.” I inwardly melted. He had no idea what impact that tiny sentence had on me and probably still doesn’t. It was safe to say that I was starting to fall into the raptures of love and it was a scary place to enter but something I couldn’t control.

For five glorious months life was fantastic and I saw the world through rose tinted glasses. D was absolutely amazing when it came to both his career (still is, although he will protest this) and being a doting boyfriend, in a word, he was perfect. He made me proud and I felt lucky to be with him. We frequently ate out, enjoyed nights out together in bars, even lounged around in bed on a Sunday morning reading the papers and eating greasy takeaway fry-ups which I still feel are such an amazing idea and should be abused more often. He’d even turn up at my workplace on a Saturday afternoon to surprise me with a coffee and cupcakes which firmly planted him in my heart. Life was easy and for the first time, I felt I’d truly met my soul mate. So nothing could prepare me for the time when we had a stupid row over something so ridiculously fickle that I don’t care to even remember exactly what it was. Myself, being stubborn as a mule kept up the aftermath of the row for a good few weeks. I just could not let it go, I felt let down and slowly and painfully, we drifted apart until the dreaded words “lets split up” resounded. As soon as I uttered the words, I regretted it. That row was the first and last we were ever to encounter. It’s terribly odd to think that the biggest blow was dealt upon seeing D’s Facebook status change to “Single”. What a terrible thing to have to see on your newsfeed immediately after the dumping deed has been carried out. Imagine feeling like your heart had been ripped out, followed immediately with a drop kick in the stomach and you may be close to imagining how I was feeling at the time.

Shortly after this, I went into self-destruct mode. I stopped eating for a grand total of three months, shed a stone for every month and slowly fell into a dark, deep depression. I have no idea how many boxes of Kleenex I managed to sniffle my way through but I know it was a heck of a lot. So, what is one to do in the throes of complete heartbreak? The answer, dear reader, is to wallow. Oh yes…wallow in your self pity until you cannot bear to wallow anymore. I found that the best way to do this is to wear pyjamas all day long. Do not even think about wearing the slightest amount of make-up. Drink copious amounts of tea (as tea solves everything). And lastly, cry yourself a river whilst listening to the most depressing soul destroying music ever made. There really is no worse a feeling than losing the one you truly love. The old saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, is, in my opinion a load of rubbish. I prefer the term, “What doesn’t kill you turns you into a shivering, jaded, emotional wreck.”

Months on, I was still head over heels in love. It’s truly terrible knowing that if you had allowed yourself to forgive and move on, you probably wouldn’t have lost what was meant to be all along. Lessons in love are the hardest to learn and probably the most frequent you will be subjected to. Is it all worth it? Certainly. If I could take myself back to October 17th and remember the feeling I had watching D climb out of the taxi towards me after we’d decided to officially be together I definitely would. That feeling of complete excitement where you just have to run at the said person because you just can’t wait a second more to be near them…yes. Definitely completely worth every single tear. But as for dying from a broken heart? I don’t quite think so. Want to know the silver lining to this backwards fairytale? We’re now back together after coming to our senses and realising we were meant to be, and after all the trouble we had, we are now finally happy once again.

I have an assignment to do so naturally, I’m procrastinating. It’s amazing how much time you can waste literally doing nothing. Washing the pots came high on my ‘to do’ list, even venturing down the creepy cellar alone to sort out the boiler seemed a better option than tackling the terrible history essay that’s mocking me.

Decided to make Chicken Biryani and take it for D on his lunch break. Had a lovely time dodging the parking warden. It’s not a good idea to venture out without any loose change for parking meters. I drove around him three times, he so knew my game. Oh well, may as well be a rebel for once in my life.

Anyway, bye bye facebook and anything else that’s remotely fun in life. Time to roll with the assignment from hell…yawn.

Note to everybody out there: I’m not perfect. Sometimes I mess up and make a complete wreck of things. Sometimes I’m loud and confident, sometimes I’m quiet and shy. Sometimes I eat way too much profiteroles or drink too much red wine, sometimes I can’t eat a thing. Sometimes I’m graceful – mostly I fall over. Sometimes i don’t need you, but sometimes….sometimes I need to be told how much you care.

Sitting on a high rock on the beach alone is probably not a good place to start contemplating life and everything that goes with it. Especially when the suns just about sunk into the sea and the tides steadily working it’s way into the shore. I don’t know what it is about the past two evenings but I just haven’t felt quite right. A part of me feels empty and a bit sad, like I’m missing something.

There’s something soothing about the sea – watching the waves slowly roll in and crash in foamy white fizz only to roll straight back out again. I’d so sleep here if I could. Sometimes you just need to get away and be by yourself to collect your thoughts. I wish D could be here with me right now, he’d love it. So tranquil and relaxing. You can almost feel the sea soothing away your sadness.

Unfortunately, I think I’ll have to move soon and retire back to the apartment. Unless I want to get swept away of course. On second thoughts…