Notes on Heartbreak

by Annie Lord

I guess that’s how people go on, without knowing how.

I’ve come to think of my ‘self’ – my personality – as an entity that collapses when I am alone and unperceived by others; but then, as if by magic, when I am with other people, my ‘personality’ reassembles itself.

That’s the thing with revelations: they come and then you ignore what they show you and continue on in the way you behaved before.

‘If you’re silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.’

It’s all ‘he’s holding you back’, as if relationships were valued only for how they help you better yourself.

‘One of the main struggles of relationships is learning how to find the right balance between connection and independence. What do we share and what do I need just for myself? Where is the “I” and where is the “we”? How close is too close? Often in relationships one person clings on tighter than the other. They are afraid they will lose their partner. Meanwhile the partner fears they have lost something infinitely more serious: who they really are.’

But they didn’t look like that, they looked like everyone else. Enjoying that there was just one day left before the weekend. Trying to find a pub where they can get a seat. Joe and his new girlfriend don’t exist outside the realms of experience, they’re just people.

I used to find it frustrating that when it comes to the universe you can’t change what has already happened. But right now, this fact starts to feel kind of reassuring as it shows there’s no point endlessly contemplating tactics for sorting it all out because you couldn’t fix it even if you tried.

You are made to move on through this city so much it’s hard to feel like it’s ever yours. It’s tiring, like when you’re a kid in the back of the car asking your parents, ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ because the destination never seems to arrive.

‘Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.’