V-DAY: Natural disasters

There are some pretty terrible things that happen in the world. The earth opens up and swallows entire cities, diseases mutate into strains that kill birds, pigs and people, and then the person you spent the last year in love with breaks it off with some ambiguous explanation.

These are things that for the most part, we try our best to understand as natural. Terrible, yes, but we have to recover. We learn our lessons, we rebuild, and we move on. It is a part of being human, but it’s also among the most painful periods of our lives.

While the heartbreak we experience over the death and suffering of others is acute, it’s also removed from us. The real anguish, the kind that haunts and lingers, comes when you have your heart broken by someone you love.

It is also the kind of anguish with the least amount of validity. There is no such thing as a “lovesick” day or leave for mending your broken heart. There are still classes to attend, papers to write and a life to lead. It becomes less about coming to terms with the absence of a relationship and more about learning how to live your life around the emptiness.

To make matters worse, if you are in a typical relationship, then this past month you too have felt the gaping emptiness that is heartache. January is considered National Break-up Month, and in the cold and dreary days between a New Year’s resolution and Valentine’s Day, people start to reevaluate what’s important and what they want. It results in arguments, misunderstandings and, ultimately, loneliness. It’s happened to four of my friends in the past couple weeks. It even happened to me.

So how do you cope with heartache? I don’t know if there’s an answer, but Valentine’s Day certainly isn’t making this any better. How can you feel so void of emotion and compassion when every storefront and commercial suddenly feels the need to manufacture a day of love? There is just no getting around how obnoxious it is to see hearts everywhere when it is beginning to feel like you no longer have one.

It is a defeated feeling, having to accept that someone you care about won’t return your tweets, texts and Facebook messages. It’s empty, lonely and devastating, but this is the advice I give to you – find really good music to listen to.

Don’t try and fill your loneliness with food, and, above all, surround yourself with friends and family who truly love you. Believe it or not, there is always enough to go around.