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 she’ll lose someone she’s never even met, and that she will feel that loss like a bullet wound that’s not even really there and that maybe it didn’t make a sound, but somehow it was the shot heard around the world that night when he said “i can’t do this anymore,” or “it’s just not the right time,” or better yet, “i just don’t love you like i used to”
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 he’ll 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 can’t recognize the signs. sometimes you never see it coming and it’s all out of the blue and that’s when it feels like a lightning bolt. that’s when it’s the most intense kind of pain– 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. he’ll stop calling just to hear her voice, he’ll stop picking flowers and looking for four leaf clovers, and telling her she’s beautiful or that she looks lovely today. he won’t like her favorite music, he’ll change the station when they’re in the car together and her favorite song is on, he’ll stop holding her for twenty minutes at a time, and just like that, the end will begin.
the fights will start. they won’t be so bad at first, but they will get uglier. they’ll go from “can you just stop fidgeting all the time?” to “jesus christ you’re such a bitch, i can’t stand it when you always do that shit,”
and you’ll stay, you’ll 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 camel’s back. it will come out of the woodworks and hit you like a curve ball and you’ll never see it coming.
and whatever he does, whatever he says, this will be the end.
and i’ll tell her that she’ll feel every single part of it up until then, she’ll 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 she’ll 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 boy’s love, while beautiful, will never make you any less lovable when it’s 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 it’s 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.
