Brokeback Camel

Relationships are tough.  Just watch episodes of Sex and the City or any Lifetime movie and you'll know it to be true.  More than likely you don't even need to turn on the TV, you have your own front row, first hand experience to go on.

My relationship came with many red flags, actually they were more like giant red banners flapping in the wind and even presented themselves on occasion as huge red blimps, flying overhead.  Unfortunately for me, my squinted eyes viewed these red flags with curiosity, mystery and above all, flags that could be removed, or with the help of the DIY network, bleached out and dyed a nice loving shade of pink.

It is unpredictable and often baffling to determine what will be the "straw that breaks the camel's back" in a rocky relationship.  When you have so many straws, entire hay bales at times, added to the overall burden you've been carrying, it seems you always think you can attempt to take on one more.  Testing our own limits?  Resting in our own fear?  Not wanting to fail, give up, let go, to start over again? As in all matters of the heart, it remains a mystery. I remember years ago telling my brother that I felt that this relationship could destroy me, that I would be hurt, that it was as if  I was tying myself to the railroad tracks and just waiting for the train to run over me.  His response was "then why don't you get up?"  Good question.  But one I couldn't answer.

From the outside looking in, which is where I have been for many others, I have too often been the one that just can't understand how someone could stay in an unhealthy relationship. I have offered my flip remarks, such as "dump the bastard" to "get rid of the loser."  Thinking it a no-brainer, a matter of logic, removing the heart from the picture completely.  Like a surgeon, a job to be done, don't get emotionally attached, give the patient a number instead of a name. But when you are the patient and it is your heart, the strings pulled can be excruciatingly painful, ripping at your love, your history, your hopes, your dreams.  And as humans, we do whatever we need to do to avoid pain, all you need to do is visit a pharmacy to see that.  So at times it is a matter of which pain you want to deal with.  Stay or leave, they both have their side effects.

Battling my own mental war here, my mind won't settle and jumps back and forth between the right and the left brain, strong, determined, and logical to the weak, confused and emotional (insert whiny, "but I love him").  When our insides hurt, it is often times more painful that any physical pain we have endured.  This makes things difficult because the world doesn't slow down or make allowances for a beaten up, wounded heart that is bleeding to death.  There are no broken heart hospitals. People want you to move on, go out more, get a grip, meet someone.  Then we will be better.

So how do you heal a broken heart?  I tried finding how others that have been betrayed have dealt with it, Googling Sandra Bullock and Shania Twain, to name a couple, thinking this could be a short cut I could take.  But broken hearts are like weight loss, there is no magic pill.  We are a nation of "now" - we want immediate results, speedier speed, we'd rather replace than repair.  Well, you can't replace the heart, well not true, I guess you can, but it takes a while to get on the list.  And repairs can sometimes be lengthy and come at a great cost.  But time is the only solution.  We want it to rush by, or wish we could hibernate for a few months, come out of our cave to see everything new, green, in bloom and possibly ten pounds lighter.  But that isn't what we get.  We get long agonizing days that we just want to end, just want it to end so we can sleep, and more often than not that sleep is disturbed and restless, only to begin another long day of thinking, feeling and dissecting our way to an emotional meltdown.  How can the heart overtake us like this, be such a powerful force?

Well my camel's back broke the other day. My endurance ran out and I collapsed.  So now I have to play the miserable waiting game, and as anyone who knows me knows, I am not a game player.  Hate games. Please don't ask me to play scrabble with you. And I'm not that great at waiting either, patience isn't my strongest suit.  But lucky for me, what I do have is a very strong supportive back brace, in the shape of my friends and family, who will hold me up, make me see the humor in it all, and I know they will help me, remove the straw, one stick at a time.