What shapes the way we love? Or the way we allow ourselves to love and be loved? Until this year, I thought I knew how to love and be loved. Now, I think that ability got blocked before I ever had a real chance to try. I have tried comparing my experience to those I have heard about, read about, or seen on TV, but the truth is, my experience doesn’t seem to match anything I have seen portrayed.
At 12 years old, I had a boyfriend who was also 12. I cried when he called and told me he hoped the jewelry he gave me turned me green. “Green as a damn leaf.” He said as he slammed the phone down in my ear. While this wasn’t heartbreaking, it was shocking for me as it seemed to come out of nowhere, and I had never experienced someone changing their mind about how they felt about me.
Then there was a guy whose conscience got the best of him when I asked him why a high school senior would want to date a 13-year-old. I was hoping for an answer along the lines of me being better than any other possible girl in the world, but that’s not what happened. He told me he didn’t know, sat there for a little while longer, left, and never came back. I cried and watched for his car to come back for a couple of weeks, but I wouldn’t say it broke my heart.
It wasn’t until I was 14 years old that I experienced my first real heartbreak. I think this one was different because the relationship lasted for a long time, and there were many complicated layers to it. When we met and started seeing each other, I was 13, and he was 20. We were together for nine months, and he turned 21 five months into our relationship. The plan was that we would get married when I turned 14. Five days after I turned 14, he came home one day, packed his stuff, and left. I never got an explanation for why he left, so I assumed it was because he decided he didn’t want to marry me. I carried that story for over 30 years until I finally had a conversation with him about it. I believed he left because he didn’t want to marry me; he said he left because he was given an ultimatum.
When I revisited that memory, the new details didn’t matter. Whether he chose to leave or was told to leave, it was how he left that caused the hurt. What I did find that was important was that when I went to write about the experience and took myself back to my bedroom at 14 years old right after he walked out of the door, I realized the hurt I felt that day has never been matched. I have lived a lot of life since then, so that is a very large statement. It made me curious, so I followed that thread from that moment through every heartache since that I can remember. There were plenty that hurt. Bad. But none that gutted me the way that one did. I believe that first heartbreak taught me how to guard my heart just enough so that no one can ever hurt me like that again.
My next significant relationship came about six months later. I was 14, he was 17. From the very beginning, he did things that an unguarded heart might not have tolerated. He cheated on me almost weekly, and that is not an exaggeration. He would literally run and hide from me, and only call me when he had nothing better to do. Which was usually at 3 am after all of his friends had gone home or passed out. Eventually we did end up growing closer. We were really good at entertaining ourselves and finding things to talk about. He ended up being my best friend, and I felt safe with him.
I did not feel safe in the emotional sense that he would not hurt me, lie to me, or cheat on me, but in the sense that no matter what happened, he would never fully leave me. I would never have to be alone, for very long, ever again. He would run off and stay gone for weeks, but he always came back.
We ended up getting married when I was 16, and he was 19. I think the cheating stopped, but the lying and running off didn’t. And that was true for the first five years of our 20-year marriage. Five years in, we had a baby, and I put my foot down. It stayed down, and when I let it up, we ended up divorced.
During all of the years of chaos between us, there were plenty of times I was so upset that I felt sick to my stomach. Sometimes it felt like something was literally twisting my insides. I would grab my stomach, bend over, and cry. I remember spending days sleeping on the floor of whatever house we were living in at the time and waking up crying because I was alone. As much as all of that hurt, it still never got as deep as the first time, back in my bedroom at 14. By the time we divorced, I had no more tears left for him, at least not for the things he could do to me. I cried because the dream I had for my family had crumbled; I cried because I watched him destroy himself, and then I cried the hardest when I saw what it was doing to our daughter.
Revisiting all of those moments, the closest I have gotten to the pain of my first heartbreak was when I would cry for my daughter. I think that is because, unbeknownst to me, the callous on my heart wasn’t meant to protect me from her. She was the only one with full access and has been ever since. Somewhere in my psyche, the instructions read that my child was safe to love. Maybe that is because my heart remembers how my love for my parents felt until they rubbed their own version of callouses too. My heart said something like, as long as I didn’t do those things to her, she would be safe. Therefore, access granted.
Now, I am wondering how much I have missed out on. How much love have I blocked or guarded against without realizing it? I have a husband now who has only ever been kind to me. He is attentive and loyal, and tells me he loves me several times a day. I feel safe with him, but still not completely, and that’s not his fault. I still carry the story that people don’t mean what they say and are likely to change their minds at any time. My first heartbreak taught me that; my first marriage reinforced it. I cry for myself when I think about how I have not been free to experience the entirety of love for over 30 years. But then I stop.
I don’t know if I have ever experienced real love that is safe and doesn’t just feel safe enough for now. I think my current husband is the only one who has given me proof over a period of time that maybe he is telling the truth, but tell my heart that. My heart is waiting for the right time and the right circumstances to prove that the right thing to do is to keep me guarded. My heart saw my hurt and promised never again. I guess that’s proof I accept love from myself.
I don’t know where this journey will lead me. I hope it leads to a version of me with a softer, less guarded heart. But that feels scary. I enjoy my marriage now, and I enjoy the love we do share. I think there are probably deeper levels I could get to if I would allow it, but honestly, I could be making that up. I have no proof that this isn’t as good as it gets. The proof that I have not had a heartache like my first does not prove I have not felt the entirety of love, but it feels like it makes sense. If I am living with a guarded heart, it would only follow that the flowing in and out of emotions that make me vulnerable to hurt are equally guarded.
When I think back to my first heartbreak, I have zero memories of what it felt like to be with that person. I can’t even remember a conversation or how we interacted at all. The hurt wrote the narrative, not the loss of love. The hurt was born out of what I experienced as betrayal and abandonment. Both of those things slammed the door on love. So I guess for me, the work now is to explore the wounds of betrayal and abandonment and decide to what extent I associate them with love. Is there a version of my life where I can imagine a world where I believe being fully open and vulnerable with my heart feels safe? What does that world feel like? What does that look like? Right now, it looks a lot like the things I’ve read in books or seen on TV, but it still feels pretty scary.
