Wishful Thinking

It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all

The human brain is a wonderful organ. It’s verbal, logical analytical, intuitive, creative and emotional. But sometimes an overactive mind can start playing tricks on us. We find ourselves caught in the shoulda, woulda, coulda thoughts about a past we no longer have control of, reliving moments and events we should have long ago left behind. At other times we find ourselves caught in the realm of “what if”, daydreaming, imagining and fantasizing of an alternative future we could have only hoped for.

I’ve been pondering over the “what if” question for some time now. My husband’s affair as well as our separation has taught me so much and I have grown from it. But it makes me wonder: if I’ve grown, learned and matured from this experience then he must have too, right?! So what if now a wiser man and wiser women would meet again? Could they be happy together? Would they now withstand the tests laid down before them? What if we stayed? What if we tried?

There is something strangely passive and even abusive about the “what if” question. All of these ‘what ifs’ usually amount to nothing. Yet the thoughts come uninvited and always seem to hold such force on us; haunting us, spinning in our minds, weighing on our hearts.

One of the saddest things in a break-up is the imaginary future that you’ll never have with the person who you have now left behind. This inability to accept incompatibility or just the fact that we had grown apart as individuals is emotionally draining. But I know now that it is not him that I miss or love but the concept, the picture I had in my mind. So I realize that while some people think that it’s holding on that makes one strong; sometimes being strong means letting go.

The Logical Mind vs. the Emotional Heart

They say that: “The head forgets but the heart remembers”. Surely I’ve forgotten many of the events that have happened that led me to here, many of the angry words that flew across the room, the countless tears that were shed, the lies that were told, and the promises that were broken. I do not remember it all. And maybe I don’t want to.

But my heart remembers the pain, and the anguish. My heart has not yet let it go; it has not yet healed from its wounds. My heart is still broken into pieces, shattered, and waiting to be picked up, embraced, and tended to.  It cannot forget the words that pierced right through me. It remembers the sting it felt when I found out of the affair, and it remembers the twist of the knife as more and more lies surfaced.

“Let it go!” is the sentence I’ve been hearing most for the past year. Not because I cannot let go of the pain that is still in my heart, but because I cannot let go of the love. It seems that the heart is the one organ which has so much love, that it is willing to forgive and forget. It is blind, and irrational; emotional with no logic. It feeds off illusions, and sweet dreams. No matter how excruciating the pain, and how deep the cut, the heart still loves.

If “we are persuaded by reason, but moved by emotion” then how do I stop loving? How do I move on after 10 years?

The truth is that my mind has already moved on. It has made the decision to leave. It has looked over the list of pros and cons, weighed each point and made a completely biased, logical and rational decision. It has determined that the best option is to move on.

But my heart has not yet joined for the ride. It has not yet realized what it wants. It has not yet been able to let go of the love it once felt. It has become my weakness, my so-called Achilles heel. It feels a longing for a long-lost memory that is engraved on it, and nostalgia for the “perfect” past it has created in its imagination.