Do you know that achey feeling you get when you’re apart from your significant other for too long? It’s physical. You ache. Feels like you’re getting the flu kind of, or like you had a particularly straining work out. I think it’s from your heart beating too fast for your body to keep up, counting the minutes until you’re together again. Anxiety mixed with anticipation and a deep-seeded, impatient need. An addictive need.
Laura was with me today in my apartment, visiting from DC. We got an email from our other best friend (and past roommate) who’s in the peace core, Lindsay. She was aching for her boyfriend…ehem, excuse me, fiance. (long story, not what it seems, another time).
Laura said: I remember what that felt like, a physical prison. A conflict between my own life goals and not wanting to be away too long from my ex. It was horrible. I never want to ache for anyone ever again. I never want to love a boyfriend that much.
I agreed. When things ended with Nate I felt sick for months. Same thing for James, and after my significant college boyfriend started dating my college roommate sophomore year, I was on a steady diet of four advil a day for who-knows-how-long. Aching for someone is never a good thing, especially when things end, life goes on, and the ache stays the same.
As young women and fairy-tale-fed girls, maybe we hold on to our relationships even when we know things are bad, because we can’t stand the sustained, unrequited ache that comes with a break-up. Nobody likes to hurt. Nobody likes to have a broken heart. It does in fact hold us prisoner under the pretense of ‘I can make this work’ and ‘I don’t want to start over with someone else’. We give, we love, we ache. We miss him. We don’t want to give just anyone that kind of power once we’ve experienced the loss. It’s not worth the aching the second time around.
But I think the ache is worth enduring if it means happiness. I wouldn’t be with a guy who couldn’t make me feel his absense and wait impatiently for the next chance to feel elated again. To smile and blush and flirt. I don’t want a guy that doesn’t physically have an affect on me. I want to feel the burn and the craving, but it may actually kill me to be disappointed again.
Linds is happily aching in Morocco. It gives me hope that one day it won’t be in vain anymore.
