Letters to a Broken Heart | Vol. 4
Letters to a Broken Heart | Vol. 4
"I was starting to feel a bit better about everything, and then..."
“Letters to a Broken Heart” is a collaborative writing project between Sophia Hembeck & Lachrista Greco.
After seeing an Instagram story about Lachrista’s breakup Sophia took a screenshot of her words not knowing that a few days later she would break up with her partner as well. The duo started writing letters to each other about their heartbreak. Each Sunday for the month of September, Sophia will be posting her letters to Lachrista’s newsletter, and Lachrista will be posting hers on Sophia’s newsletter.
If you want to follow our journey of healing from heartbreak, make sure you are subscribed to both of us.
Read Sophia’s third letter here.
Lachrista Greco, 24th June 2022:
“Ended my relationship tonight with someone I’m totally in love with because he’s unable to be emotionally in it anymore for a lot of reasons & kept pushing me away. Life goes on, I guess. I’m sad but ok. First time ever that I have broken up with someone. And I really didn’t want to…”
Sophia Hembeck, 30th June 2022:
“this is me now. heartbroken. newly single. no regrets.”
Dear Sophia,
Thank you for your letter. One of the bright spots during this dark time is knowing I'm not alone in the heaviness of heartbreak.
It's interesting that you started the Alexander Technique, because I recently started Somatic Therapy, which also deals with movement and regulating the nervous system. I have had four sessions. I have felt more helped by these sessions than I have by talk therapy in the last decade. I am so painfully used to feeling unsafe in my body (for various reasons), and I am trying with all my might to find pockets of a felt-sense of safety. I fully believe that trauma can live in the body and stay until it's ready to leave (or until you work with it).
I was starting to feel a bit better about everything, and then I hurt my back. I went to urgent care and they diagnosed it as sciatica. I was now in immense physical and emotional pain. It felt completely unfair. I immediately felt frustrated, because this injury was self-inflicted. In an effort to get physically (and mentally?) stronger, I had been weightlifting. But as I tend to do, I overdid it. I also think my body has been, generally, holding on to too much.
In my last relationship, and in all my romantic relationships, I tend to hold space for the other person more than I do for myself. I prioritize their needs, feelings, and desires. In return, I'm called "easy-going," "chill," and "too good for this world" (this last one is something my latest ex said to me via text). When he texted me that, I remember thinking: "This is what you say before you break up with someone."
Reading your words about the Six of Swords tarot card and the boat imagery has me eagerly agreeing. Forever afraid of "rocking the boat," I push my needs aside. I push me aside in relationships. I nearly erase myself to make others comfortable. This is something I'm working on changing. But you know what irks me? No one has ever questioned it. No one I've dated has ever cared enough to check in around this. Maybe I'm just really good at acting like the "chill girl." The thing is, though: those who really know me, know that I wear any and all emotion on my face. I'm not good at acting. And though I'm always fearful of rocking the boat, that fear is misplaced since I'm often in the boat alone anyways. But I guess I'm afraid of being in no boat at all.
When you mention wishing your ex could love you better, it made me think about my own post-breakup fantasies. I also don't like to admit that I think about my ex contacting me someday to, at the very least, talk. The absolute bare minimum! This may never happen, and maybe I want more than the bare minimum anyways. So I continue to find closure in my own way, in my own time. When I really think about it, it's not even closure I want—it's him, but the version of him I need and deserve and thought I had. But I know this is not how he exists.
I am learning how to love myself again, and as you said, "pour it all over me and let myself feel it for once." I now understand what I want and need in a relationship and what I want and need in a partner. Part of me cannot wait to love someone again, but this time, make myself the priority and show them how deeply in love with myself I am, first and foremost.
I'm sorry to hear that you are currently homeless. I can imagine that coupled with your breakup must feel very destabilizing. I hope you find a safe place to land soon and continue to love yourself fiercely.
With love and starlight,
Lachrista
Read Sophia’s third letter here.
Lachrista Greco, She/Her. Femme. MA & MLIS. Creator of The Guerrilla Feminist. Writer. Speaker. Curator. Librarian. Strega.