After some reflection, I’ve recently realized something about myself: I love experiencing heartbreak. Not in the masochistic, “I want to suffer” kind of way, but in that gut-punching, heart-ripping-out-of-your-chest kind of way. I like it in the way that absolutely destroys you. There’s just something about feeling that intense pain that comes with losing love—the kind that feels like a physical ache in your chest—that makes me feel more alive than anything else. I know it sounds strange. Maybe even reckless. Or cruel. But before you write me off as insane, just hear me out.
I don’t want to romanticize heartbreak, because in all reality it is not something fun or for someone to go running after. It hurts—like, physically hurts. But there’s an undeniable beauty in it. As much as it hurts—maybe even because it hurts—it’s proof that the love was real. The connection you shared with someone was so deep that their absence leaves a hole in your heart that you can’t ignore. You don’t feel this kind of ache over something that didn’t matter. The agony of loss is proof that you’ve felt something meaningful, something worth grieving. It’s a visceral reminder of how deeply we can care, how much we can give, and how passionately we can love.
And I’m not just talking about the heartbreak that comes from losing a romantic love. I’m referring to losing anything that mattered: a close friend, family, a dream, a version of your life or even yourself that you hoped would last forever. It’s about the way something can feel so right one moment, and then be gone the next. That realization—that things will never be the same again—is the kind of devastation that leaves you broken, yet somehow changed.
For the longest time, I thought heartbreak was something to avoid. I though feeling it it made me feel so weak, like a failure. So when it hit, I ran from it. I filled my schedule with anything I could, trying to drown the feeling in work, plans, and distractions. My Google calendar looked like a tightly packed puzzle, every second of my day crammed into place (not kidding. every second), as if I could fill up every tiny gap to prevent myself from feeling. There was no room for breathing, no room for pauses—just back-to-back blocks of tasks. I thought if I kept moving, the pain would eventually fade into the background. Spoiler alert: You can’t outrun feelings forever. Eventually, they catch up to you, no matter how fast you’re moving.
And then, when the world quiets down around you, that’s when you’re left alone with it. That’s when it hits. The sobs come, and they’re not gentle. They feel like someone’s stabbing you in the heart and twisting the knife—sharp, relentless, a pain that cuts deeper with each breath. Each inhale feels jagged, like breathing is a battle against the hurt. The tears don’t stop—they flood your face, blur your vision, and leave you silent, helpless. In those moments, it feels like the world is crashing down around you.
But then, oddly, something else happens. A product of the chaos, the grief, and the desperation, is a strange kind of comfort. You start to realize that the pain isn’t just pain. It’s proof that you’re alive, still capable of feeling, of caring so deeply that it hurts. It’s the feeling of being human, unfiltered. And somewhere, deep beneath the tidal wave of emotion, there’s a whispering truth: This won’t last forever.
Eventually, the tears will stop. The ache will soften. It might not be tomorrow, next week, next month, or even next year, but healing will come. And in the meantime, you sit with the pain, letting it wash over you. You surrender to it. It’s in that surrender that something changes. You begin to understand that heartbreak—or any emotion for that matter—is temporary. You begin to understand that you won’t be consumed by it.
I remember one night in particular when the sobs hit hardest. I hadn’t planned on crying that day. I thought I was doing so well. I had socialized like I was supposed to. I ate all my meals, went to my classes, and kept up with everything I needed to do. I had convinced myself that I was managing it—that I was handling the grief better than I thought I would. Convinced myself that I was fine. But there it was, bubbling up when I least expected it. I walked into my dorm, tired from a long day, and sat down in my fuzzy chair. Suddenly, the sobs came, and I couldn’t stop them. It wasn’t the soft, quiet tears I had tried to blink away before. No, this was a storm. The kind of crying that comes from deep inside of you, where you can’t control it, and you don’t want to. The tears were hot and relentless, tracing down my face like a stream that couldn’t be stopped. I didn’t even try. My body shook with each sob, but not in a frantic, desperate way—in a soft surrender, as though I was finally allowing myself to be held by the weight of the moment.
At that moment, it felt like I was unraveling. I felt every tear, every tremble in my chest. But as strange as it sounds, even then, there was something almost beautiful about it. The pain wasn’t ugly. It was soft, tender in a way that made me want to cradle it. The ache in my chest, the emptiness, wasn’t something I was fighting against anymore. It was something I was allowing. I was sitting with it, feeling it completely, knowing that, just like the storm, it would pass.
And slowly, after my tears dried, there was peace. It wasn’t an immediate kind of peace—it wasn’t as if the grief had vanished—but there was an understanding that this moment, as exasperating as it was, would not last forever. It was temporary. And that realization was comforting. Despite all of that pain, there was a quiet certainty that, yes, I would be okay. The pain wouldn’t consume me. It was just part of the process.
“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” — Jonathan Safran Foer
And there it is. The paradox. To truly live, we have to embrace both the joy and the sorrow. Because what is joy if we’ve never known sorrow? If we try to avoid heartbreak, we also avoid love, joy, and everything that makes life worth living. The truth is, the more we love, the more we risk losing. But isn’t that kind of the point? To feel it all?
In those painful movements, when everything feels like it’s falling apart, we realize how much we’re capable of feeling. How deeply we can love, how powerfully we can grieve, and how intensely we can rise again. The depth of our emotion is the price we pay for a life lived fully.
I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s the truth. That depth is a privilege. How lucky am I to have loved so intensely, so completely, that it hurt? That pain—terrible as it may be—is proof that I lived without limits. I loved without restraint. I let myself dive headfirst into something that mattered, knowing full well that loss was a possibility.
Heartbreak doesn’t have to be an ugly, horrible thing. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not a punishment or a flaw. It’s a part of the human experience. We can’t pick and choose which emotions we want to experience. To live is to feel it all—the highs, the lows, and everything in between. We often tend to gravitate toward happiness and joy because they’re easy, they feel good. But it’s the full spectrum of emotions that makes us truly human. Sadness, grief, and heartbreak, though painful, force us to grow and experience life in a way that’s real and raw.
On second thought, maybe heartbreak isn’t something to love or hate—it just is. It’s part of what we sign up for when we let ourselves care deeply. And while it’s messy and painful and leaves us feeling undone, it’s also undeniably human.
Heartbreak has a way of making everything simultaneously more sharp and dull—the colors, the memories, the questions we never got to ask. It forces us to confront the edges of our lives, the boundaries of what we thought we could endure. And maybe that’s what makes it worth sitting with—not because it feels good, but because it’s real.
the riva gallery 