The heart is a funny thing: it is an essential organ, like the brain, or your liver, or your kidneys. But it holds a different kind of memory within it. It is the one organ in the human body that can be damaged emotionally, and such damage can make you feel like you’re dying, as if you were in cardiac arrest. The manifestation may come in the form of a panic attack: the memory of someone beloved will register in the brain, as if you’re viewing a Polaroid in your psyche.

Then the memory travels down into the heart, searing in its delivery as it journeys through all your vessels and then passes through the valves of the heart. Such memories are insidious; they burrow their way into every nook and cranny and once positioned and situated, they hold fast and don’t let go. Unless, of course, a more wonderful memory comes along, dislodging the old one from its far too comfortable position…

You see, the heart is a fragile organ. The memories we hold inside it – including all the terrible, lasting memories that knock the wind out of us and make you wish you could dig your own grave and lie in it, waiting for someone to pour the soil on the top of your head – are never fully erased. They just fade in intensity over time. And that’s the most important thing to remember about the heart: even if you’re feeling horribly bad in the moment – like all is hopeless and you have no idea how you’re even going to get out of bed, let alone cope with the emotional fallout – you will find that as time passes, the memories of your heart won’t haunt you as much as they did when the pain was still fresh. The memories still exist, but they become distant, like whispers from another life.

We get angry with ourselves, because we are so insistent that had we seen the warning signs, we would have never allowed our hearts to get broken. We think we’ve said or done something to deserve the pain. We beat ourselves up. We go through stages of disappointment, sadness, anger, self-loathing, self-harm. At times, destruction seems an easier path than rebuilding.

But the pain is necessary experience. And when our hearts are let go from one person, then we are free to love another. And you want someone who loves you for you.

Love is the most beautiful thing we as human beings can experience. Never, ever lose your faith in love.