Broken hearts. At this moment, there are 3,678 photos tagged "broken heart" in Flickr.  I've been reading this book that a friend shipped to me called When Things Fall Apart. Doesn't that title make you want to hurl? Yes, me too. But the book itself is like a perfect, little nerve pill that I keep coming back to. Take this passage, for instance:

 

The experience of certain feelings can seem particularly pregnant with desire for resolution: loneliness, boredom, anxiety. Unless we can relax with these feelings, it's very hard to stay in the middle when we experience them. We want victory or defeat, praise or blame. For example, if somebody abandons us, we don't want to be with that raw discomfort. Instead, we conjure up a familiar identity of ourselves as a hapless victim (check!). Or maybe we avoid the rawness by acting out and righteously telling the person how messed up he or she is. We automatically want to cover over the pain in one way or another, indentifying with victory or victimhood.

Heartache is not something we choose to invite in. It's restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we can rest in the middle, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a relaxing and cooling loneliness that completely turns our usual fear patterns upside down.

I gotta tell ya, this buddhist stuff works.  It's amazing what happens when you stop running away from pain, and instead try to observe and honor it. Relief.

Then again, sometimes you just need a healthy dose of loud, angry music. Sometimes, you just need to thrash around in your shoebox-sized apartment, blasting a classic tune and screaming at the top of your lungs "Ten, Ten, Ten, Ten for EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING!"

1. Kiss Off  - Everyone's Favorite Break-Up Band

You'll need more than just one song, of course. And much to every bachelor's delight, the Femmes have put out a ton of records in the last twenty years.  Buy something.  

-- Jess