I used to think I had never had my heart broken because I had never been in love until I met Domi. I thought you could only ever really have your heartbroken by someone you were in love with. I believed this until I was on the phone with a friend talking about how hard it is to make friends. We talked and talked and at some point, I mentioned that I had lost three of my closest friends in the past two years. 

“Wait, Chelsea, that’s huge,” she said. 

It caught me a little off guard. I guess that is a lot. As we kept on talking about these friendships of mine that had dissolved I realized something. Each time one of those women walked out of my life a little piece of my heart broke. They were people I had loved fully and deeply. 

I thought I was over it. I thought I was healed…I mean, after all, I had written multiple blog posts about these friend “break-ups” so I’d dealt with it already right? Sadly, wrong. There is so much work to be done. Because I found that they have made me afraid of loving a friend in the same way again. 

It didn’t make me afraid to love fully in my romantic relationship because with Domi I feel safe. I feel secure. He is actually the first relationship in my life where I haven’t been afraid that he’s going to leave or felt a need to hold on tightly because I have a calm about me when it comes to him. He doesn’t make me feel insecure or like if I say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing one time it’s over. Sadly, in many of my friendships, I have felt that way. So, sometimes I hold on too tight. Sometimes I am like a vice-grip, but in my mind, I have good reason to feel that way because time and again when I am truly myself I have had people I love walk away. 

Does that mean I stop being myself? Absolutely not. It just means I wait and have faith that the people who will love me just as I am will show up.

As I write this, I realized I’m not ready to forgive these friends just yet. I’m just not. And that’s okay. Maybe tomorrow I will. For now, I honor this new feeling. I used to have a hard time listening to friends talking about struggling to love again after a breakup and I didn’t understand. I said, “but you have to love again! You’re going to be fine”. It wasn’t until now that I truly grasped what it feels like for your heart to be raw and to want to protect it at all costs because it hurts like hell when people leave your life—even when it’s for the best. And it’s not always going to be easy to forgive them right away, or maybe even for a few years. But there will come a day when we will be able to forgive and love again in the same way we did before. I refuse to not let my heart love to the fullest and I refuse to stop myself from experiencing what it’s like to love and be loved by a friend. 

Heartbreak of any kind is hard. And healing takes time. That’s why they put casts on broken bones…because they don’t heal overnight and neither should we expect our hearts to do the same. We need to allow them the space to feel let down and angry and hurt and wronged. We need to let our hearts know it is okay to be broken because in the broken bits we learn and grow into the people we become and those are beautiful people. That the shattered bits of our love won’t last forever. Slowly, and surely each piece will get glued back together and our hearts will love with reckless abandon as they are built to do and each time they are broken they can heal. Our heart is a muscle. Muscles heal. Your heart can heal no matter how many times it’s been beaten down or made to feel insignificant. But to me, a world in which I am not allowed to love to my fullest extent is not a world I want to live in.

Friends, I’m scared. I’m scared to love and that’s something you never hear me say. But it’s the truth. My heart has been broken many times and I have not given it adequate time to heal because I’ve “worked through it,” and I’ve “let it go” when deep down I know I haven’t. 

I finally understand in all of those romcoms when someone says, “I will always love you, but I can’t be with you.” I thought it was so cheesy, but I think sometimes it’s the truth. There will be some people we will always love. And they will not be the people that are healthy to be with or be around. And I believe that even if we love them forever we can get over the heartbreak they have caused and love again. Because we are built to love. And the right people are out there waiting for our brand of love. 

No, my heartbreak cannot be fixed by writing posts, but it’s a start. 

To my friends that have broken pieces of my heart,

I will probably always love you and there will likely always be a piece of my heart that will be yours, but the good news for me is that my heart is infinite and you have a piece that does not subtract from my ability to give and receive love with other people. And maybe in time, I will forgive you. I’m just not quite there yet. What I will do is I will sit down and be grateful for all of the incredible friends I have in my life. I will manifest more relationships that make me feel whole, and wanted and secure again. And I will tell those that I love that I love them every freaking day because I want them to know it and screw it if it’s too much. I know I mean it and that’s all that matters. 

Bottom line:

1)     Heartbreak isn’t cured overnight

2)     You still have the capacity to love no matter how many times your heart has been broken

3)     Writing letters to those that have hurt you that you won’t (or maybe you will) send is helpful in the healing process…it gave me the permission to be angry, which I sometimes struggle with. And feel free to be brutally honest on the page and burn it later no one needs to read it

4)     It’s not helpful to force yourself to forgive or let go before you’re ready. Take your time—healing from heartbreak isn’t a sprint (although I sure wish it could be—maybe sometimes it will be…just let your heart have the experience it needs and be honest with yourself)

My heart may be broken, but my heart is stronger than the pain that’s been inflicted upon it. 

All heartbreak is hard. But we were built to conquer and heal from hard things. 

I love you. I mean it. XOXO, CAMDW