heart-break n. Overwhelming sorrow, grief or disappointment

heart-ache n. Emotional anguish; sorrow

We’ve all been there, have all suffered.  If you say that you haven’t then you’ve been living in a plastic bubble all of your life.

Or, you’re a liar.

As I was researching these expressions, I, of course, checked out the Urban Dictionary.

If you’ve never been it works like this: Other readers post their own personal definitions there and then the definitions are listed in order of popularity. You can say just about anything and sometimes definers overshare.

There are some really bitter and heartbroken people out there.  It was the most unsatisfying visit to one of my favorite websites, ever.  I left, depressed.

And decided to just go to The American Heritage – at least there are no tales of woe.

But, one thing that people said repeatedly is that the “first heartbreak is always the hardest.”

I’m not so sure that that’s true. Honestly, I can’t remember my first – couldn’t even tell you who it was that broke my heart.

Actually not even sure now who my first love was.

But, as much as I understand that the first is awful, partly because you have no idea what it feels like so you are slammed by emotion when it happens, later on, a few heartbreaks down the road, you know what’s coming and that dread almost makes it worse.

As does the fact that when you get your heart broken at 40, you also have to re-deal with all of the ones that happened in your 20′s and 30′s.

Plus, when you are in your 20′s, you think you’ll never find another love again, but deep down you know that you’ve got plenty of time and that chances are, you’ll meet someone and fall in love again.

When you’re in your 40′s (or older) you have a much more realistic view on the world and other people and    it’s harder to buy into  that whole the-world-is-my-oyster crap.

But, age aside…

Rejection. Feels. Like. Shit.

And the world feels black and icky and you can’t think of anything or anyone else.  Suddenly the other person becomes perfect and everything that you ever wanted and all of their flaws become non-existent.

Sometimes it’s just too hard to breathe.

Or you want to hurl.

Or just go to bed, maybe drugged, and obsess and sleep for the next 6 months until it starts to feel better.

You buy a lot of Visine and maybe some new handkerchiefs.

Eventually though, you get to the point of a new haircut or some retail therapy or a girl’s night out.  You remember that he (or she)  is actually a little self-absorbed (obviously because he wasn’t able to see how fucking fabulous you are).

You start to see that you were actually feeling worse about yourself in his presence than when not. You felt lonelier with him than when you were home alone.

You like yourself better when you are with your friends than when you are with him.

You have moments of “His loss.”

And then you know the healing process has begun.

Maybe, the difference between a 20 year old’s heartbreak and a 40 year old’s isn’t that it’s harder or hurts more, it’s that in your 40′s, you’re wise enough to start that recovery process a whole lot sooner.