and if i ever have a daughter, i will warn her.
i will tell her that anyone, anyone can break your heart.
i will tell her that one day sheâll lose someone sheâs never even met, and that she will feel that loss like a bullet wound thatâs not even really there and that maybe it didnât make a sound, but somehow it was the shot heard around the world that night when he said âi canât do this anymore,â or âitâs just not the right time,â or better yet, âi just donât love you like i used toâ
and hearing that will feel like the jaws of a great white clamping down on her chest, it will feel monumental and colossal and made of aching. it will feel like the whole atmosphere has escaped from her lungs. she will feel every ounce of the earth perched heavily on her shoulders.
i will tell her that it comes like a flash, that she will see him and it will be all butterflies and that heâll touch her and it will feel like fire lapping up her skin with every move of his fingertips. it will be hard to contain, it will be hard to handle the love that she will feel for him coursing through her body, but that this will be nothing compared to what it feels like to lose him.
the beginning will conspire starkly to the end.
and i will warn her that sometimes you canât recognize the signs. sometimes you never see it coming and itâs all out of the blue and thatâs when it feels like a lightning bolt. thatâs when itâs the most intense kind of painâ when you never do see it coming.
but maybe more so than not, it will be gradual. it will be in the little things he does. heâll stop calling just to hear her voice, heâll stop picking flowers and looking for four leaf clovers, and telling her sheâs beautiful or that she looks lovely today. he wonât like her favorite music, heâll change the station when theyâre in the car together and her favorite song is on, heâll stop holding her for twenty minutes at a time, and just like that, the end will begin.
the fights will start. they wonât be so bad at first, but they will get uglier. theyâll go from âcan you just stop fidgeting all the time?â to âjesus christ youâre such a bitch, i canât stand it when you always do that shit,â
and youâll stay, youâll stay because no one could ever convince you to leave.
but one day, it will be the mother of all fights. this one will be the straw that breaks the camelâs back. it will come out of the woodworks and hit you like a curve ball and youâll never see it coming.
and whatever he does, whatever he says, this will be the end.
and iâll tell her that sheâll feel every single part of it up until then, sheâll feel it all as it grows and grows and grows and the pain in her chest will go from small little twinges to oceans of pain so blindingly terrible.
and at this i will tell her that one day sheâll meet someone who will stop liking all of the things he used to love about her, and that will hurt more than anything.
one day he will stop loving you, and god it will hurt, god only knows that it will feel like the very end of the earth, but that in no way does it change your value or the worth that you have.
a boyâs love, while beautiful, will never make you any less lovable when itâs gone.
and i will tell her that i want her to know that yes sometimes love breaks and burns, but that the kind of love that lasts is out there. it is out there and beautiful and it is waiting for her.
i will tell her about her first love, i will tell her what it will feel like when itâs gone.
but that no matter what, no matter how much she loves him and no matter how hard it is when he leaves her, that she will remain beautiful, she will remain wonderful, and that in time her heart will go on.
