Kimberly Joans' Diary

It seems that in the movies, especially romantic comedies, which tend to be my favorite, there are always misunderstandings, missed opportunities, someone running after the other, the other always out of breath, it is usually raining or there is a light snowfall, and they end up falling into each others arms. Even if she yells "get away from me" a time or two, they seem to realize that fate has brought them together, love is all around, happy ending, lights go on, theater gets empty. Ah, romance. We leave the theater uplifted, holding on to hope that these happy endings are real, they exist, even outside of the movies.

I was just told in an email that, "You can't make people love you. This is not a film script or a ludicrous song title." But wait, I've believed in those film scripts and music has been my life, my comfort, my belief system, my religion. When I hear a love song (which love translates to a broken heart the majority of the time) I just know that whomever the singer is singing to will have a change of heart, come running back. How could they not? When Phil Collins sang "Against all Odds" you just knew she would come back to him.

They say that communication is the most important thing in a relationship. But how can we communicate with one another when all we have learned to do is talk, say words out loud, but still not understand what the other is saying, what they are feeling, the true message they are trying to get across? It is mind boggling to me how much misunderstanding surrounds so many of my own conversations. Or statements. It is hard enough when you are in a room together, speaking words, observing body language, noting facial expressions, but now, throw emails, text messages, and Facebook remarks into the mix, and you really have one hell of a recipe for a mystifying word jumble. And the worst of it is, after a misunderstanding or two, (or two hundred) people just quit talking, they don't even try anymore. Silence can say more than a whole boat load of words and at times be even more painful.

I always thought that getting older, though tougher on the physical self, would become easier in many other ways. We've always heard how you gain all this wisdom with aging, and that in itself was enough to sell us on the idea of trading in our youth. Not that we had the option. Once again, it is one of those "things" we say just to make the trip down "I forgot my memory lane" a tad easier. In Don Henley's song, "Forgiveness" one of the lines is, "the more I know, the less I understand" and that is how it feels to me. Maybe we never understand. Life itself is such a mystery why should relationships be any clearer?

As little girls we focus on the wedding, but not so much the marriage itself. And little boys, they learn to talk, and shoot me If I'm wrong here, but have a hard time communicating. At least when the communication involves their romantic partner. They are great in a boardroom or when they do their Tim Allen manly grunts and fist pounds on their chest among other verbally uncommunicative males, they understand one another. It is apparently effective communication, says all they need to say. But I'm having difficulty with it. I use my words. And I need someone who uses theirs too, who takes the time to explain if I didn't quite understand, or backs up a bit if I need to hear it one more time. If they say communication is the key to a good relationship, well then it is obvious why there are so many bad one's out there. That is at least one thing that I do understand.

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.