Heartbreak vs Hangover … Getting Too Old for Both

Laying on my couch feeling completely incapacitated, the thought of food or drink makes me nausea, the room is spinning in a dull way, and I have no desire to move, period. If I were to relay my symptoms over the phone to a medical professional I wonder what they would conclude. I had my own epiphany that my heartbreak was similar to a hangover. Interesting…. perhaps.

It came to me a few weeks later on my “healing” vacation, in a moment where I realized another comparison that it was getting harder to bounce back quickly from either phenomenon and that quite frankly I was just getting too old for both.

Let me start off by writing a “disclaimer” that the topic up for discussion is firstly created by ourselves. Yes, heartbreak’s and hangover’s are self inflicted acts both cast upon ourselves and result in the same maladies of emotional, mental and physical discomfort. Even I often like to “blame” an external source because relating to something outside ourselves can seem to alleviate even a little of the “pain” even if only temporarily.

My friends in Kaua’i had this beautiful painting on their wall, up high.  It caught my attention many times. One time I stopped to pay attention. I asked myself what I saw and immediately this “broken” part of me said sure that’s me standing out front of the boat, looking into the horizon with hope, believing the person I’m traveling with is guiding us along and knows that my heart is in the boat with us. What I can’t see but he can is he’s pushing us over a cliff. A-ha of course. In moments my first rendition of what this painting meant would conclude with my heart in pieces on the shore below. And then in an immediate second moment, one that skipped over the first one and replaced it, I’m present to what this picture has been wanting to share with me all along. That we’re going to glide over the edge and fly.

There’s a quote I think of often. It got me through my first “mid-life crisis” as I called it 10 years ago when I made some major changes in my entire life and that catapulted me across a huge cavern onto new ground. Recently I’ve found myself in this reflective space, knowing that it’s time to cross the unknown again though this time I’m going to fly instead. It shows up for me when all the great things in my life, both personal and professional, seemed to be pulling me in a new direction and I know I’m going to jump, yet I sit counting 1-2-3 and ….

It quote goes something like this:

When you come to edge of all of the darkness that you have known and you are about to step out into the abyss trust that one of two things will happen… a net will appear or you will learn how to fly.

Let go and Let's go and fly!

Cassándra