What To Do With Former Love Letters

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What in the world am I supposed to do with former love letters? 

Should i create a bonfire for them, or should i publish them after my death?

Are they a testament to falsehood?

Are they a reminder that there is no point in trusting again?

When I dated someone a few years ago, we had a whole romantic correspondence.

I knew that the letters we wrote each other were unique and that I would one day enjoy reading them and showing them to our grandchildren.

I stored the letters in a special email folder... 

Alas, the relationship did not work out and we didn't get married, and yet, despite the break-up I never deleted the letters. 

I never really looked back and reread them, but knowing that they were there was somehow comforting. 

Consciously, I was thinking that I might use them one day to write a novel...

Subconsciously, I probably didn't want to let go.


Forward a year. I was dating someone else, and things started getting serious, we started using the M word in conversations, and I knew that I should probably delete the emails. 
With a heavy heart and a strong sense of duty, I logged in and clicked delete. 
I went to the trash folder and deleted them from there as well. 


Everything would be fine, except that the relationship with the next guy also fell apart. 
And now I was still single, and on top of that I didn't have the love letters from guy 1. 


Apparently, I used to be quite smart, and I envisioned myself doing what I did because this week when I was looking through old files and books, I found a folder with all the emails printed out and stored in order. 
I was so grateful to the me of two years ago for taking that precaution. Maybe I still would be able to produce a novel someday.


I spent some good hours looking through the files. I smiled at times, laughing at how naive I could have been to believe what he said, shocked at others by things emanating from my own fingertips, and sad at times over the fate the relationship took on, the pain endured, and the innocence of the first romance lost. 


Now, I have letters from more men. And in a way, I am so blessed to have these souvenirs to remind me when I am going through a dry spell, that there are times when it rains, and there are times when it pours.


Do I keep them or do I throw them to the winds?

You Did Not Just Say That

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I broke up with Mr. 4 months. It was sudden and out of the blue.
I returned to my apartment sobbing loudly.
My roommate gave me a hug and when I calmed down a bit and caught my breath,
she told me: "I am kind of happy you broke up, because I was nervous you would get engaged before me."

I stared. "YOU DID NOT JUST SAY THAT." Was my thought process. But she did. She said it like it was.

Because I ended it after four months with a guy who couldn't commit, and she was dating a guy for two years still hoping he would propose someday.

I felt like telling her: "If you keep on dating the guy you are dating now, I will still get engaged before you!"

Break-ups: Baruch Dayan Emet

Image: http://images.sodahead.com

G-d, you hurt me.

If people remembered how bad pain was after it was over, they would never subject themselves to open up and get hurt again.

If people thought about hangovers when they took their first shot of liquor would they ever swallow?

If people thought of the heartbreak dating causes, would they ever date?

And then I think, would it be better if I didn’t have those four months? 

Would it be better if I never felt the closeness, the connection, the potential, the excitement?

As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote

I hold it true, whete’er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

‘Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

We had what we had and no one will take that away from me. 

The experiences are now a part of me. 

 And somewhere I know this is a blessing in disguise. We all had our concerns.

Somewhere, I know I will be fine. My heart has been broken before and it will probably be broken again.

I have fallen in love before and I will fall in love again.

It is just that at the moment when the pain is most intense, when the heart shatters into a million little pieces, it is pointless to think of the hidden blessings.

I need my time to mourn.  I need my time to heal.

My heart is so angry at me. I let it break again.

“But why?” it asks. “Your friends married the first guy they dated. Your friends don’t  have multiple long term relationships. Why did you have to do this to me? Why did you put me through this?”

And I apologize to my heart because I am honestly sorry.

I didn’t see this coming. Perhaps that is what makes it more painful in the first place.

I thought that someday I would marry him.

I believed him when he told me he loved me and never met anyone like me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.

That is probably why I should be so much more relieved that it is over now.

I don't think I would have ended it on my own.

And if it wasn’t meant to be then it wasn’t meant to be.

On the other hand, I believe in people creating their own destinies;

People choosing their spouses. So fine, Baruch Shepatrani, thanks for taking it out of my hands and resolving this for me.

My family is great.

You all wrote, you called from many different countries.

You all care and that means so much to me.

I know I have a solid supportive family which will get me through this like everything else.

G-d has blessed me with great friends who are also there for me.

At times of death when G-d's judgement is unclear, we say Baruch Dayan Emet. 

A relationship that I was a part of died last night, so Blessed be the Righteous Judge.

Thank you. 

The Plain Truth

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It was a hot day. The conference had just ended and I was exhausted. My jacket was smothering me. I needed to breathe some fresh air. I had no plans for the evening so I decided to take my time. Instead of walking on the streets, I entered Central park hoping to emerge on the other side.

I followed the paths intertwined with ponds, trees. I lost myself in the heat, the vastness of the clear blue sky, the statues, the yoga classes taking place somewhere in the distance.

It did not take long for me to realize I didn’t know where I was.

I kept on wondering through the park the shirt glued to my back. I was exhausted from the heat, from the day, from it all. I put one foot in front of the other, in the back of my head looking for an exit. For heavens sake, this wasn’t a forest I was lost in, but a regular park with people all over.

I took a double take when I saw him. Perhaps I was hallucinating in this desert called Central Park already. But no, there he was as real as ever. He was just as I remembered him, tall, slim, thoughtful. His dark eyes pierced the air in front of them.

My first thought was to run away, to walk in the opposite direction. Then I realized that it was my park as much as his and I couldn’t spend eternity running away. I had to take what life gave me.

He saw me. Our eyes met. I saw no hesitation on his face. No looking for escape. It seemed our paths would cross.

When we reached each other I nodded. “Hi,” he said and turned to walk with me. I didn’t feel like being polite. All the psychological shenanigans of being nice and not being vulnerable fell away. It was too late for that. I had already opened up and been consumed by the fire. All that was left was the simple truth.

“You hurt me.”  I stated. He didn’t respond. Somehow, his confident stride beside me made me feel reassured in some way.

I had no idea what the silence meant. “What is this?” I asked. “Why aren’t you saying anything? Why are you pretending as if nothing ever happened?”

I was so frustrated. “I am lost,” I blurted and burst out crying.

He asked me where I was headed and kindly walked me to the exit I was looking for.

I paused and looked at him expecting him to say something that would make it all better. It isn’t what you think it is, it was hard for me too, let’s try again, even I am sorry it was painful for you. But he said nothing.

I nodded and walked away.  

The Heaviest Sobs

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The heaviest tears are the ones cried last. 

I have noticed a pattern in my life and was wondering if anyone ever felt the same. 

When I had crushes/really liked/ their neshama appealed to me on certain guys, I would develop some sort of non-existent relationship in my head which I would love, because the relationship always progressed exactly at the pace and in the way I liked it to. 

The problem was that the relationship did not exist, so all the thoughts were accompanied with an intense lack, and an intense missing and longing. 

At some point when my heart could not stand the nagging longing anymore, I would hit a breaking point. Where I cry for hours on end. The pain is just unbearable. The realization that what has been so real to me is absolutely nothing to the person it is meant to mean so much to. 

And I cry, and I sob. And I look in the mirror at the red puffy blotches that are supposed to be my eyes, and I feel sorry for myself, that I have come to this level. And the pity makes me cry even harder. 

Those tears are the hardest to shed, but also the most consoling. Because they release my pain of holding on to the pain. They give me the strength to let go.  

At some point it gets so bad, that from there it can only get better, and that in itself makes me feel better. 

Let's Just Be Friends

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Can someone please explain this to me: when people break up and say... this isn't going to lead to marriage but we could be friends, or we could do lunch or something, people don't mean it, do they?

This scene from the Social Network (Brilliant movie by the way)
where Erika is breaking up with Mark

Erika: Let's just be friends
Mark: Who are you kidding? We aren't going to be just friends.
Erika: I was trying to be polite. I have no intentions of being your friend.

And a good quote:

Having the love of your life say you can just be friends is like having your dog die and your mom saying you can keep it.

Getting Burned and Dumped one and the Same

This is an article my friend Mijal found for me on CNN Health

Image: http://www.cnn.com
Brain networks that are activated when you're burned also light up when you think about a lover who has spurned you

To the brain, getting burned, getting dumped feel the same

By Matt McMillen, Health.com

March 29, 2011 9:35 a.m. EDT

(Health.com) -- Science has finally confirmed what anyone who's ever been in love already knows: Heartbreak really does hurt.

In a new study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers have found that the same brain networks that are activated when you're burned by hot coffee also light up when you think about a lover who has spurned you.

In other words, the brain doesn't appear to firmly distinguish between physical pain and intense emotional pain. Heartache and painful breakups are "more than just metaphors," says Ethan Kross, Ph.D., the lead researcher and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor.

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The study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, illuminates the role that feelings of rejection and other emotional trauma can play in the development of chronic pain disorders such as fibromyalgia, Kross says. And, he adds, it raises interesting questions about whether treating physical pain can help to relieve emotional pain, and vice versa.

"What's exciting about these findings," he says, "is that they outline the direct way in which emotional experiences can be linked to the body."

Kross and his colleagues recruited 21 women and 19 men who had no history of chronic pain or mental illness but who had all been dumped by a romantic partner within the previous six months. The volunteers underwent fMRI scans -- which measure brain activity by tracking changes in blood flow -- during two painful tasks.

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In the first, a heat source strapped to each subject's left arm created physical pain akin to "holding a hot cup of coffee without the sleeve," Kross says. In the second, the volunteers were asked to look at photos of their lost loves and were prompted to remember specific experiences they shared with that person.

Other fMRI research has examined how social rejection manifests in the brain, but this study was the first to show that rejection can elicit a response in two brain areas associated with physical pain: the secondary somatosensory cortex and the dorsal posterior insula. Those brain regions may have lit up in this study but not others because the rejection his volunteers experienced was unusually intense, Kross says.

Although Kross stresses that the study is "very much a first step" in understanding the connection between physical and emotional pain, the findings may help chronic pain patients grasp that emotions can affect their physical condition, says psychologist Judith Scheman, Ph.D., director of the chronic pain rehabilitation program at the Cleveland Clinic.

Health.com: Is chronic pain ruining your relationship?

Past traumas can make people more sensitive to pain and thus more susceptible to disorders like fibromyalgia, which causes both chronic pain and fatigue, Scheman says. She and her staff encourage pain patients to "explore their emotional trauma and baggage," but many are reluctant to do so.

"As a clinician, I like studies like this because patients often don't understand why they have to do painful emotional work," Scheman continues. "Showing them something like this helps them understand that there is science behind what I am asking them to do."

Copyright Health Magazine 2010