The Magic of Heartbreak

Moving On...

Dear Phetasy,

Guess what?  I’m heartbroken.  Yup.  I know.  I had it comin’.  This is the first time I find myself in the kind of gut-wrenching, heart-bleeding agony that has me on my knees begging for mercy.  I've kept myself so shielded from these deeper levels of intimacy, the Minotaur locked with in the maze, it took a warrior to reach me.  A King.  And reach me he did.  Only to slay me.

But I am no victim here.  I walked right into it.  If I am the victim of anything, it’s of Cupid’s perfect aim and mischievous sense of timing.  I never knew something like this was even out there.  Like the Minotaur, I thought true love was just a myth.  The stuff of fairy tales, Hallmark Cards and romantic comedies.  But almost six months into it, I’m still crying Uncle.  I’m still seeking relief.  In fact, I am now praying on a daily basis for the strength and wisdom to get me through this pain and help me move into the New Year free of this horrible burden of a heavy heart.  If you're into the church thing, light me a candle while you're there, please.

In the meantime, I’ve been escaping from reality.  My most recent drugs of choice?  Classic country romance music and believe it or not, the Harry Potter series.  I can’t get enough of the boy Wizard.  In fact, I read all 7 books in the past three weeks. Drinking or smoking reefer or doing drugs just don’t really cut it anymore.  I think Dumbledore says it best when he tells Harry, “Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”

Feel the pain I have indeed. Twenty years of buried emotions have come rushing forth.

Although I feel sorry for Harry, being a marked orphan-boy with the weight of the Wizarding world on his shoulders, I find myself jealous of him.  At least he has MAGIC to help him through it.  We’re all marked for death the moment we’re born and we “Muggles” just have to kind of blindly bump through it, relying on our magic-less friends, our prophecy-less therapists and our spell-less self-help books to get us through.

But for all the magic Harry has at the tip of his wand, it’s really not about that, is it?  In the end, it isn’t magic that saves Harry.  It’s love.  At the end of the day, Harry Potter is really just a brilliant, extended tale about the power of love to overcome fear, doubt and ultimately transcend even death.

One of my top five favorite movies ever made is a Baz Luhrmann film called Strictly Ballroom.  The heart of the film is expressed beautifully in a Latin American proverb: “Vivir en miedo es como vivir a medias” which translates to “A life lived in fear is a life half lived.” 

I try very hard to be fearless in my own life and preach the necessity of living fearlessly, but between Harry Potter and the recent falling into the painful depths of love, I have been forced to look at what a coward I have truly been.

Love and intimacy have a funny way of doing that, revealing all that we keep locked away.  The very act of shying away from love, cowering from its burning light, has kept many of these painful feelings protected in the shadows; feelings connected to my mother, my father and traumatic events from my past.

We cannot be afraid of these powerful emotions and the transformation they bring. We must dance our own steps. We must bravely face our darkness and fear.  Like Harry, we must walk towards our impending death, willing to stare it in the face and lay down our life for the sake of love. Because what do we really have if not the courage to do that? 

Excruciating, star-crossed love has brought me many unexpected gifts.  Like a dry landscape long overdue for a sopping wet rain, my soul greedily and gratefully soaked up the healing properties of the storm.   Renewal.  Rejuvenation.  Restoration.  Retreat.  Regeneration.  Recovery.  Buried deep within this natural intelligence is the idea of repeating something that has already been done, going backward, finding something that has been lost, returning home.

That’s what true love feels like.  Home.  More than ever before, I have come to understand what the expression “Home is where the heart is” means. Although I feel humbled and devastated and at times, homeless, a part of me feels revitalized, more open, more integrated, more liberated than ever before.

I have loved fearlessly.  And lost.  And lived to tell the tale.  From this destruction, my heart will rise out of the ashes to love again--and again and again and again.  Long after it takes its final beat.  Long after we are gone from our planet.  Because love is indestructible.  You can never take it away.  You can never kill it.  Like beams of light, it will go on and on and on, creative energy expanding into the universe.  Eternally.

And if that isn't magic, I don't know what is.