I thought I had met the one.

“The one.” What does that even mean when there are so many people in this world?

When I say this (and I’ve said it often lately), I mean “the one” with whom I was going to merge my life. We were going to merge families, homes, finances, lives, hearts and futures.

But that future died, and I’m left dealing with the aftermath. As I’ve mourned that loss and looked inside to see the lessons I’m meant to learn, I’ve questioned moving on.

When will I be ready?

When we move into relationship, we take our beaten and battered hearts and willingly hand them over to another human, saying, “Here it is. It isn’t beautiful, but it’s full of love and I’m ready to share that love with you.”

It’s a risk, this handing over of the most delicate part of ourselves. Some give it freely, while others hold back, afraid of what may happen when we give someone else the possibility of breaking that which has been broken before.

We risk the the relationship simply not working out, our partner handing our heart back and saying, “No thank you.”

We risk the other person not handing their heart over in return.

And we risk our lover being careless with our fragile heart. Throwing it to the floor and walking away, leaving us to pick up the pieces and begin the long, long process of putting it back together again.

This is where I am. And I know, this is where so many of you are, too.

It’s easy to stay on the floor in fetal position amid pieces of our shattered heart, broken promises, and dying dreams. And, for a while, we must do this. We must grieve what was and what we had hoped to be.

Only the brave stand back up, assess the damage, and take the time to heal it.

Only the brave will look inside and take responsibility for their role in the wake of devastation.

Only the brave will wait until the healing work is done before moving forward.

We could distract ourselves with the promise of another love right now, using that person to pull us through our grief and sorrow—using them to put our heart back together for us, using them as a drug to numb the pain.

We could distract ourselves with unhealthy behavior, sabotaging our healing process.

But let’s face it, friends: the only way out is through.

We are going to heal our broken hearts if we sit with the pieces and slowly put it all back together. The only way to have a healthy relationship is to become whole again.

This is my hope for every broken heart reading this today: be brave.

Take time for yourself to heal, knowing that when that process is through you will be able to move forward again.

Only whole hearts are able to love fully—isn’t that what we all want?

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Author: Amy Weitzel

Image: Christian Gertenbach/Unsplash

Editor: Toby Israel

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