this post brought to you by...

...tag, who posted, and once known as el tejon, who commented on tag's post today.
(not to mention my first husband, who contacted me this past weekend, after about 15 years.)

i'm supposed to be making fudge right now.

the question under discussion, at least in my head, is:
once heartbroken (or twice or 47 times), how do we move on in a way that serves us? how do we avoid the hardening of the heart into which we can fall so easily? what do we do with the hurt, anger, bitterness that we humans create so easily, and feel the need to justify? how do we let go of the pain, and let love in again?

It is sad not to love, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.
-Miguel de Unamuno

i could write reams about this. none of it would be new. so here's the reader's digest condensed version.

1. don't deny the hurt. don't hang onto it, either.
2. tell yourself the truth. don't let others tell you what you are, or should be, feeling.
3. know what part you contributed to the heartbreak. if you think you have no
part in it, think again.
4. resolve to do better the next time, for yourself and whoever you meet.
5. resolve that there will be a next time.
6. forgive the other person.
7. forgive yourself.
8. remember that you are healing. there will be very bad days, and not so bad days, and finally, good days.
9. resist the temptation to take on the role of victim.
10. finally, make no decisions based on the pain. those decisions, like "i'll never do this again", or "i'm not loveable" are pretty much always wrong.

i could write more of these pithy little comments. i might, later on.
there's so much more to this topic than can be addressed in one post.

we all have to make our own way through the muck and miasm of heartbreak.
this quote is the bottom line:

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.
-Albert Camus