Shiny, shiny

I saw someone in the pub tonight. Someone who was once very dear to me and whom I knew from the moment we met would always hold a very special place in my heart. I heard my name being called by a voice that was at once intimately familiar and yet somehow so very distant. A sort of life, flashing, eyes moment.

That someone was my first love. The first person I wanted to give the whole of me to and who for a short time I think I did. That someone was also the first person to break my heart. Into bits. Tiny bits and horrible pieces that I thought at the time would never, ever fit back together again. But those first bits and pieces did in fact mend quite well. Well enough that to see the cause of that heartbreak again was a joyous moment. A moment to delight in that seemed filled with genuine warmth as two people reconnected through the shared memory of something once so very wonderful that even the pain of its loss couldn't destroy.

And it was pondering on that moment that brought clarity and calm to some vaguely upsetting thoughts I have had of late, namely the mulling and pondering and dallying over the question of why, in spite of having spent 15 years of my life with Him Formerly, I can't scrape up even a hint of a tickle of fondness for shared memories. Not a smidge.

I do try because evidently there was a lot of fondness in the relationship for it to last 15 years. A lot of love at some point too, a lot of passion, a lot of laughter. Yet while I am able to recall that those emotions happened I can't relive them, I don't feel them. I feel just kind of empty. Wasted. It's like I am watching a film and failing on the suspension of disbelief: as if all the mechanics and techniques are to the fore, the plotting too contrived and emotional engagement therefore impossible.

Of course I hope this feeling too will pass, as all the others have done. Yet this feeling has been accompanied by some of those doubts they call nagging that constantly suggest it just won't happen. And if it doesn't ever happen I now understand why. An understanding reached through the memory of my first love and my first heartbreak. An understanding of honesty.

My first love broke my heart. Yes into tiny bits and horrible pieces. Yes it was painful and yes it hurt terribly. But it wasn't broken with anything other than honesty. I grant you that in innocence and youth relationships are perhaps less complicated, but we only know that through the benefit of our useless hindsight. At the time of our experiences they are as real and hurtful and complicated as we can ever know or ever imagine. And the imprints stay with us always.

With my first experience of heartbreak there was no malice aforethought ... no sly deceits to tarnish the memories and no spite or cruelty to taint them. When in time all the bits and pieces were finally put back together my heart was able to shimmer forever in the afterglow, having been buffed by experience and polished with the truth.

Sadly my most recent experience of heartbreak bears little resemblance to my first. It started off with a glimmer but then slowly but surely each bright moment was pinched out by the discovery of another lie, each new lie extinguishing the flickers of truth I still held onto. Finally I reached the point where the lights went out on my memories and they seemed real no more.

So if the time comes when you know you must break another's heart, dust down your conscience and do it honestly. A heart that is honestly broken honestly can get better. And your memories will shine with more brilliance if able to share in the reflected glory should you meet them unexpectedly in the pub one night.

Yours in hope & fear, AJ x