Second by Second

I call her and cry. Hysterically. She lets me. Tells me to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. “Minute by minute” she says, I tell her it’s too hard, too long. “Second by second” she says, and I breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth between sobs.

“Deep breaths,” he texts me. I think of his terrible breakup over ten years ago, him on the side of the road. “It’s amazing what deep breaths will do.” I trust him.

I breathe in. I breathe out. It’s the only thing I can do right now.

She sits with me while I fall asleep. For a few hours, I don’t have to practice breathing.

“You don’t have to eat today, but you do have to eat tomorrow. Water for today. You have to drink water.”

She handed me the slice of pizza enough times that I took four bites. Half a glass of water to down the tylenol to cure the pounding headache.

It’s five am and the sun looks like it might, miraculously, rise again today. I cannot fathom how.

I tell him I am so scared I will not survive this. He tells me I am the strongest woman he knows. I am layers of shattered pieces. There is no strength left here.

They are literally holding me together. These people who love me. Who love me.

When I write, I do not have to remind myself to breathe.

These are things one should not post on the internet.

And yet.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

I moved to New York City because I knew it could hold my sadness. Vast avenues, tall buildings, longer, taller than my eyes could focus on, space and strength not to feel burdened by my sadness. I moved to NYC to make a home for the person heartbreak had shaped. Too many, so many, so very many, all those years ago, one foot in front of another, breathe in, breathe out, like waves shaping sea glass, it turned me into who I am today. Equal parts heartbreak and love. I will always be equal parts heartbreak and love. There will always be sadness. If other cities could not hold my sadness, I could not expect them to shoulder my grief. And there would be grief. Without grief there is no joy. I moved to New York for joy.

A hundred well-thought out reasons, professional, personal, a goal without a plan, a blog titled “If Ever I Could,” a photo of the city sky line all those years ago, five years ago. And then a plan, a timeline, first and second and third steps, and I was here, in NYC.

This city has held my sadness. Effortlessly, with grace. It handed me joy, effortlessly, with grace. It gifted me love. And I thought, maybe I could.

On a hot summer night in July of 2010, unemployed, a recent and official “failure”, broke, saddled with law school debt, long-term single, living at my mom’s, I watched a CMT special with Keith Urban, who belted out the lyrics to If Ever I Could Love and handed me a tiny, small package of hope. Hope. If Ever I Could…

I moved to NYC. I fell in love. There was a love story and I didn’t write it here because it is hard to write when I am happy. Sweet dreams at night don’t make any sense when paired with words over coffee the next morning. “Forever” whispered under the covers in the morning light sounds hollow when announced to the crowd at the dinner table. In this person, I found what I have not found in another person and I wanted to keep him forever. He said the same.

Past tense. Only hours later, already past tense.

With joy comes grief. This city won’t explode against the weight of my grief. The weight of my heartbreak. Vast avenues and tall buildings, they won’t shatter, even as I am shattering, even as they are picking up my pieces and storing them away for me.

“If Ever I Could” — there is some small, tiny package of hope in there. I’m not sure what it looks like or what it contains, or if I have the strength to look for it, but it’s comforting to know it’s still in there.

This is now the story of a heartbreak. The kind without the love story attached.