Young Love, No Chris Brown...

Yes, I am married now and that is crazy to even think about; however, I haven’t always been with my husband. I did experience heartbreak (quite a few times). I am not here to write a post about how there is a silver lining at the end of a break up, but what I am here to write about is that it is okay to sit in those feelings—no matter your age.

I am writing this post because I was reminded of my heartbreak during my freshman year of college and honestly it seems so long ago. (when you think about it, it was i was 17 my freshman year so that was 8 years ago). But i thought back to that moment this week and I thought about how my feelings of said heartbreak were made to feel invalid and fake.

Granted, I should have known an upper class football player with hazel eyes and big muscles had no good intentions for me, but that is beside the point. It hurt. During that same year, my father and step-mom (the only mom I had ever known) were going through a dirty and nasty divorce. And even though I was away at college, I still felt in the middle of it. So this guy who made me feel important really helped ease the sting of the family drama. And then all of a sudden it came out he had a whole ass relationship (which in hindsight makes a lot of sense due to some of his actions). I was embarrassed and humiliated. It is not like the football team didn’t know and the school wasn’t that big.

I was seventeen years old and going through heartbreak, yet everyone around me (and by everyone i mean adults) were telling me that i was too young to know heartache. I was too young to care about a guy. That I shouldn’t let it get to me. My grades were slipping and my mental health wasn’t stable AT ALL yet no one saw that. They just saw a “young girl” crying over a nigga. And again, granted looking back he really wasn’t shit and maybe he grew up and became a great man. Sorry i keep getting side tracked.

Anyway, here I was going through something that was major to me and the adults around me didn’t understand or they did understand and they just made me feel extremely stupid. I think sometimes adults act like they are so far removed from being young that they forgot their first heartbreak or hell they forgot their first kiss or first love or first time. And that doesn’t really do anyone any good.

I think because throughout my childhood I wasn’t taught that my feelings were valid when I finally had some that were detached from my family or school that I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to turn.

I think it is irresponsible to teach young folks that their relationships aren’t real and don’t matter and don’t affect their grades or life or emotions. I mean yes, technically they will find love again or they have the chance to get back with that person (in my case, I dodged a whole ass bullet with that nigga) but the point is that in that moment it doesn’t feel like there is any hope. And that is fair. That is real.

I wish someone would have told me that when i was in high school and my first two years of college. I understand that you should not try to find your worth in another person; however, that doesn’t mean that someone cannot add worth to your life.

I wish that when i felt like the bottom was falling out of my life someone would have told me that it was okay to feel that way. That it was okay to sit in those feelings and possibly eat all of the Blue Bell ice cream in the world.

Being older doesn’t mean that you are an expert in disappointment.

I am now twenty five and I know I have a lot more life to live and I have found my forever person; however, that doesn’t mean that a part of me went with the folks in the past that broke my heart. If that was the case no one would enter into relationships with baggage. They would all have clean slates and blindly trust folks and we all know that is not how it works.

I firmly believe that heartbreak is a factor in your mental health, why do you think that one of the highest times of suicide is around Valentine’s Day. Yes, there are folks out there who could possibly going through “worse” things that a guy/girl dumping you but I hate that comparison. Because during that time of your heartbreak that is the only thing you can feel. It is the worst thing that could happen to you at that time. Trying to guilt young folks, and even adults, out of feeling that pain is rude and disrespectful.

Eventually it gets better but don’t let that cause you to try to power through the process of grieving because the end of a relationship is a form of death (morbid i know). But if you treat it like that, you can possibly understand the phases of it. Actually respect and trust that process.