How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?
Perhaps the BeeGees, those wise disco philosophers, asked it best.How do you mend a broken heart?
See . . . I'm smiling up there. But, like everyone, I've nursed my share of broken hearts. Stomped on. Chopped to bits. Put through a blender. I think some of that even occurred during the disco era. Yes, I have danced at the Palladium in a black jumpsuit, backless to my ass, with silver-something accents. Sexy, but hideously disco. Hideously "I love the nightlife" and "I will survivish."
And I don't know that you ever MEND a broken heart. You slap a Band-aid on it and hope it heals until the next time. You smile until you start to believe it. You fake it. Me? I smile until my face hurts. I pray. I light candles. I look at my children. I volunteer with the less fortunate because it's a reminder that the human condition is always difficult at times, and I do have so much. But no matter that I might move on, I have a scar. A reminder. The walking wounded.
But there is no greater fodder for fiction than a broken heart. Than unrequited love. Than murder and grief. Sure, you can read sunny, happy tales, but for me, Dostoevesky said it best:
Happy families are all alike;
every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
I may smile, but my characters suffer and persevere. Their families are uniquely unhappy. They overcome nearly insurmoutable obstacles.
Basically, though I'm smiling, I'm a sadist when it comes to my characters. They suffer for my art.
BUT . . . they also triumph. They figure out how to mend that broken heart. What is the greatest obstacle one of your characters has overcome? And were they rescued? Was their inner strength the key? How did they do it, to answer the BeeGees? And . . .
Did a scar remain?
posted by Erica Orloff at 8:55 PM
17 Comments:
To quote another great songwriter, Mr. Don Henley, "I think it's about forgiveness."
When someone stomps on your heart, the best thing you can do is forgive them and move on. Maybe the relationship is over, maybe not, but I don't think any real healing can take place without forgiveness.
Yes, there is always a scar. But every scar we suffer eventually makes us stronger, I think.
I should be Mr. Universe by now. :)
BTW, I do love that photo.
Definitely a keeper. :)
Jude:
I don't believe in forgiveness, oddly enough. I believe in moving on--and I don't think that necessarily requires forgiveness. It requires letting go. Andrew Vachss was once on Oprah [warning--this is a whole subject matter digression] as one of her "heroes." And he told her she did a DISSERVICE to every child who was ever sexually abused by saying that for "closure" you need to forgive. Why? There are some crimes that are not forgiveable. People who rape children--nope. And that child, now grown, shouldn't feel the moving-on process requires that . . . it's closure psycho-babble. To me, moving on is simply accepting what the fates have handed you and saying "It is what it is." My characters never forgive. They just give a nod to the brutality and realize the only choice is pressing forward.
I don't know . . . that's my "take" when I write.
E
Jude:
Thanks on the picture. I usually don't smile in photos (no reason, just hard to fake a REAL, twinkle-in-the-eyes-smile).
E
People who abuse children, and perps of other heinous and violent crimes, deserve a pit in Hell with their name on it.
You're right. There are some things that are unforgiveable. Or, to say it another way, some things that humans shouldn't or might not have the capacity to forgive. And that doesn't mean they can't move on.
I was thinking more along the lines of jilted lovers.
Jude:
As Shakespeare said . . . better to have loved and lost . . .
Whew! Very deep here in Orloff-ville this morning. I'll have to collect my thoughts so's not to come off like a blithering idiot--or a colossal bitch. :0
For now, I'll just say GREAT PIC!
(I don't usually smile either. Although I am a 'smiley' person. For some reason when you aim a camera at me, you don't get 'sunny' you get 'sarcasm'. Have no idea???)
Lainey:
Yeah. I usually give off "smirky."
Here's the question I have to keep asking myself, Erica:
*Is it better to have loved and lost most of your shit in a divorce settlement than to have never loved at all?* :)
Jude:
Well, if you look at life as a journey, you need THAT relationship to teach you what you REALLY want in your next one.
And . . . I stand corrected, Hardin. Tennyson said it was better to have loved and lost.
:-)
(delurk)
... things to ponder...
Personally, I think that there is a chasm of difference between 'forgive' and 'stop making wrong'. You can stop making the situation wrong, the person wrong and maybe even yourself wrong about an "event". When 'wrong' is eliminated, the what-is-so is left and the emotional charge is left hanging. That is when you can have "closure" and move beyond it.
As great as that works in real life and in self help books, it makes for lousy fiction.
Character in fiction need to have the drama in their heads and their lives... something to drive the story.
As much as I love Dostoevsky, I have to disagree with his quote. For everything there is to be unhappy for, there is something to be happy for. It is easier to write about the drama of the unhappy, to explore the dissatisfactions and pains and hates of a life. But there are just as strong universal passions of the happy as there are of the unhappy.
Doesn't the soaring of a new love bring as much passion and feeling as despair and pain of a death or breakup?
Maybe it is in the examination of the unhappy that we can find a path through the miasma toward a final happy place to reach to makes that journey so universal and touching to an audience. The examination of the happy is just as universal, but usually not as engaging for the audience.
That could be because our culture breeds examination of the negative and a need to 'feel better' about ourselves, usually at the expense of another. But that's just my point of view and not necessarily what is so.
However, I do make my characters suffer, and I use that to drive the story along. I also throw in happiness along the way to keep them going. A little carrot, a little stick :)
And the picture rocks. I try to smile in my pictures, even if it is just to get people wondering what I'm really thinking about.
(lurk)
ewoh:
Nice to see you unlurking. :-) You made my brain hurt with much to think about.
I agree with you on most all of what you said in terms of "real life." I no longer need to be "right" in my life--even when I know I am, LOL!. I just don't have to prove my point anymore and I walk away from the large majority of conflicts that come into my path now. And I also tend to see the glass as not just half-full but FULL. All I have to do is tiptoe into my kids' rooms when they're sleeping. Or remember my youngest intubated after he was born and see him now.
But for fiction, yeah. I'm a drama mama. I like the conflict. I personally could NOT read a book about falling in love and nothing else. I need a dose of angst. But I can't read only misery either.
AND I tend to think many of our emotions are tinged on the edges with the dark. Fall madly in love and it feels painful at times. It's not all swooning joy. The agony of being away from that person. The fear of falling over that abyss--no matter how great it also feels.
Anyway . . . loved your comment. Thanks!
E
Ewoh:
"...the soaring of a new love."
Absolutely, brother.
Jude:
Sigh. Everyone around this place is either in love today or has drunk so much tequila they've gotten downright deep. ;-)
E
Or both. :)
Thanks Jude :)
Erica, the whole right and wrong thing... it is just a story. There is what is so/what happened, and then there is the story we make up about it. The stories we make up give the events meaning, and of course make things and people right and wrong.
The point is that the stories are fiction. We just live like they are real. However, by giving up that there is anything more than what is so/what happened, then we lose the need to forgive. To forgive is still acknowledging that there is a right and a wrong.
I think that the key is to just 'be' in the moment, and be with whatever is there for you in that moment. If sadness is there, then be with the sadness, neither making it right or wrong, but just being with it. No excuses. Same thing with joy. Just be with it. Allow yourself the freedom to be in the moment and to feel it for all it is worth.
Hmmm... love and tequila. I have an abundance of the former and a serious lack of the latter. However there is a bottle of Jack calling my name... :)
Until tomorrow...
ewoh:
In my real life, my mantra is It is what it is. You can't bemoan the fates. And when times are good, dance like there's no tomorrow.
Enjoy the Jack!
E
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