Where Do Broken Hearts Go?

I find it ironic that on today, Love Day 2012, I am so heavily burdened by sadness.  I know this sadness isn’t my own.  I am sad at the loss of the world’s most angelic vocal queen – Whitney Houston.  Sure it’s been a couple of days since her transition, but today as I embrace love, I can’t help be remember her smile, her torment, her songs, her pain.

In 1987, Whitney sang a song called “Where do broken hearts go?”  Years later it became the blue print to my life.  I was so in love with a man who simply didn’t know how to love me back.  I have no doubt that he loved me and was in love with me.  But his childhood and his pain couldn’t allow him to love fully.  I ache for him today.  I feel sorry for him and I pray that he has since learned how to love someone completely, particularly himself.

My heart was broken.  My spirit was destroyed.  I was a mere shell of who I was before him and who I was to become.  I realize now that this relationship set the pattern for a lot of damage that I’d live through for the next couple of years.  Well, hell, I still live through it.  I recuperated from the hurt and pain by building a thick wall around my heart; a wall that even I have trouble breaking down.  I taught myself many mechanisms for dealing with hurt and pain.  One was that NO ONE was trustworthy.  I became so damaged that I didn’t believe anyone was real.  No one really showed you who they really are and everyone at some point will disappoint me.  At some point, I’d be hurt, betrayed, mislead, lied to, by every person I met.  After giving your all to a person who then cheated repeatedly, lied repeatedly, and abused you repeatedly, this unfortunately becomes a reality.

Because I felt like this, I became very negative about people.  I looked for the negative in people whether they showed it to me or not.  I believed that if I gave them little room to “get over on me” that I would be better prepared for that inevitable time when I was mistreated.  So every person I met from the moment I first lost myself in this pain, I refused to give any other living soul the benefit of being worthy of my trust.

Well, unfortunately, while I didn’t get hurt very much expecting to be hurt, I’ve lost many friends.  I’ve written off many people who probably could have been special to my life. 

Whitney sang: “Where do broken hearts go? Can they find their way home?  Back to the open arms of a love that’s waiting there.  And, if somebody loves you, will they always love you.  I look in your eyes, and I know that you still care…….for me.”  I won’t claim to know where all broken hearts go.  But I know that my broken heart has found its way home.  I even know that this love was waiting for me.  I believe that the open arms I’ve thrown myself into will melt away the hurt, pain and anger that sit at the foundation of the wall around my heart.  I know it’ll take some time.  But I refuse to be this way any longer. 

I wish a Happy Valentine’s Day to each person who reads this.  I hope that it finds you happy in love or on your way to it.

To my husband, the man who has taken my broken heart and vowed to keep it close to his in an effort to make it whole again, thank you!  Whitney prepared me for your arrival and I’ve found my way home.  I love you!