Heartbreak

Have you ever had your heart broken?  I don't mean one of those "She hurt my feelings" or "What a terrible thing to say", but real, brutal, bone crushing, uncontrollable crying, sick and puking heartbreak?  

When one gives of one's self to another, quietly thinking of another person's well-being and doing their best to make the other person's life better in any way possible, when a person does that, it is love.  When a person thinks of another before thinking of them self, does without so another can have, listens even when they don't want to, helps whenever they can, that is love. When one puts one's self first always, lies and/or cheats, purposely inflicts pain on another, that is NOT love.

The romantic "heart", the emotional one that is spoken of in love poems, in romance novels, on Valentines and in love songs, that heart is like a fountain, it gives forth love freely, without thought.  And like a fountain, when that heart is not replenished, when nothing is given back, it can become empty and unable to give forth anything.  That heart can become a rock that lies in the center of one's throat and threatens to cut off life giving oxygen.  The wonderful romantic heart can become the source of a pain that takes one's breath and shakes one's soul, it can become a source of torment that makes for sleepless nights and agonizing days.

So, in light of all of this, why do we still love?  Why do we put ourselves through the pain and uncertainty that is tied up with any emotional relationship? How do we stop?

I've been trying to figure out how to "turn off" that wonderful/hateful emotion that is known as love.  I have been searching for a way to go to sleep one night and wake up the next day and not "feel" love, to not have to endure the pain that ultimately comes from loving another.  So far, I have not been successful, but I am still searching for an answer.

I want the pain to stop.  I want the lies to go unsaid, to die in the heart, mind and throat of the liar.  I want the unfaithfulness to be over, I want it have no effect or inflict no pain.  I want to not care.  I want all of it to bounce off of me like rain off of a tin roof.  I want the love I feel, the pain I feel, the lies, the deceit that torment me, I want them all to have no more effect on me than the rain has on the tin.  I want it to be gone, washed away in the tears that have flowed for days.

But I have a true soul, a faithful, loving soul, that doesn't allow me to not care.  That soul, that deceitful romantic heart, doesn't allow me to not feel.

And that is my downfall.