How do you mend a broken heart?

Yes, I have a title today too. As we live life, we are bound to face love, be it love at first sight, love with your friend's boyfriend, loving your first dog... and more often than not, love comes to a crashing halt and leaves a heart or two broken. Thankfully, so far I have never had to get my heart broken. Chipped a bit on the side, maybe, but never broken or shattered. I healed quite nicely too. But what do you do to mend a heart that has been broken, and could a heart be broken beyond repair?

I have seen friends and acquaintances suffer through love and then suffer through break-ups. Lord Alfred Tennyson said, "Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." (I paraphrase, so don't jump all over a different wording!) But I've seen some severe cases where perhaps it is not better to have loved. The risk to lose is too great. But I guess it would be too hard to prevent someone from falling in love, because as Kelly Clarkson says, "The trouble with love is / it doesn't care how fast you fall / and you can't refuse the call / and you got no say at all." So provided that the above statement is true for most cases (if you go to the Himalayas and live among Tibetan monks, perhaps it is quite possible), how can you mend a broken heart?

I have never really thought much about this, because frankly, I don't quite believe in love. I believe in a mother loving her child, or my loving my cat. I believe that people can love each other in all genuine honesty. When people talk about falling in love with someone, that's a different kind of love. You don't fall in love with your daughter (ewww, gross!) or break up with your cat. When you love that way, it is truly unconditional. You love your child the minute the babe is born, and that love lasts forever. But falling love with a man, or a woman (whatever your preference) is different. You can break up. You can get jealous. You can be unfaithful. It has so many rules and regulations and conditions; it is not the unconditional, free-for-all love that families have, or the love that one can have for his/her country, or for a boy band.

I believe the second kind of love (that is, the amorous love placed on a pedestal by song writers, poets, writers, and romanticists) is a feeling provoked by many things. One, being biological. I think humans are biologically social animals. Therefore we are programmed to seek mates, and in many cases, reproduce. Even gay couples have desires to have children. It's biological. Another one is that since we are social animals, we seek companions. We seek to bond with other creatures like ourselves, other than the members of our immediate families. That is why we have religions and clubs -- we crave acceptance and support in numbers. That is why we seek mates. I also believe that since the age of technology began, we have more leisure, and therefore more liable to be lonely. We are lonelier than ever, and that is why we become over-weight or depressed, or go on uncontrollable shopping sprees or eat a bucket of ice cream in one sitting.

I think Disney animations have screwed up most kids. You just don't go to some ball and magically fall in love with a rich, handsome prince who loves you back, and live happily ever after. Ariel doesn't defeat Ursula and become human. She's supposed to DIE and sacrifice herself, rather than kill the prince, which would have saved her life. (Read the original work, people!)

We live with the notion that getting married, having children, and getting the white picket fences with a dog and a mini-van/SUV is the norm. We believe that because we live with our significant other without the binding contract of marriage, because we live in an apartment and drive a coupe, we are dysfunctional. I think when people break up from a relationship, first we feel a sense of fear because they are not walking down that pretty outdoorsy wedding, house, kids, dogs, SUV road, and diverting from that route scares us. I think that upsetting any sort of status quo is frightening, and getting used to the opposite is assumed to be difficult -- much more difficult than it really is. I think there is a sense of insecurity and fear, that the relationship was one of a kind. The magic can never happen again. I mean, Cinderella didn't go to another ball and another ball and order boxes of Manolos to find the damned prince. So much is invested in the past relationship -- time, money, emotions, attachment, and status quo -- the investments are going down the drain, and that's frightening.

I do agree that breaking up is hard to do. But I don't think that there is just one soul mate. I don't think that finding a companion has to be finding "the one" who will join you for the rest of your life. I know that this might not be the view of the general public, but I know that more and more are joining the "Sex and the City" fans, who are deciding to hold off on the thought of marriage. Not to denounce marriage forever, but to think twice about it. Think outside the box. It's just too much pressure these days with car payments, getting careers started, finishing getting an education, and getting all our shit together, to worry about whether you are currently dating "the one." If this "One" would make a good father, or would he take out the garbage when asked? I am a strong advocate for "Mr. Right Now" rather than "Mr. Right." I don't think that life revolves around this idea of romantic love.

Although I don't believe in god or have a religion of any kind, I do like to believe that we are all here with a purpose. I know why I was born. Do you? If you think your life is meaningless because you haven't found "the one" or you lost a love, you need to rethink your priorities. There is just more to life. Much more. If you have found love and if you are truly happy, then I applaud you. That's truly wonderful. But take it from me -- I've spent the last two years without dating, and plan to do so for at least another year or two -- there is more to life than romance. In fact, romance is an extremely small part of your life. During those two lonely, hard, cold, long, two years, I have altered my perspective. All this camera, I had my camera zoomed in to one portion. I saw that one portion clearly, but I wasn't seeing the whole picture. Perhaps I am not seeing the entire picture today still. But at least I am seeing a bigger picture. I think with more epiphanies, I may see the whole picture.

Important thing is this: your mind is much more capable than you give credit. Things are only worth as much as you give meaning to it in your mind. That is why sentimental value is different from actual market value, and mental time can be slower (as in a boring lecture) or faster (a fun fun fun day at an amusement park) than the actual time. A break-up is only as hard as you make it. It takes much discipline, and I don't claim to be a wise old saint and call you grasshopper. But with patience, and a right state of mind, everything will start flowing smoother, and you can be at peace. So how do you mend a broken heart? With a sound state of mind. I am reminded of a song... (oh no, not song lyric time again...) Barbara Streisand's "New York State of Mind." It's about seeing all the glitz of life, but being indifferent to it all. I won't post the lyrics here, because you need to hear the song to get that "state of mind." But whatever state you live in, it's definitely a state of mind worth having.