The Girl Who Broke Her Own Heart

I am not the same girl that started this blog.

It's been a long while.

After seven and a half months together, the clan left 801 Stanford Lane.  I moved into a small apartment attached to a cottage a few blocks down from the duplex.  Rylie moved into a loft fifteen minutes away.  Tom inherited a farmhouse in the next town over.  And Bryan...Bryan spends a good deal of time at my cottage.



Things are good.  Good in a way they hadn't been in a long time.  But there is one nagging thought beating away at the corners of my brain:

I keep saying "I am not the same girl."  When I say it, I almost always mean that I have grown.  That I have learned.  That I am not as naive.  That I will not make the same mistakes.  But is that true?  Sometimes I doubt it very much.

Sometimes I think I am the girl who broke her own heart.  Sometimes I worry I'll do it again.

My old life in Germany, the story you all fell in love with, was a fairy tale in more ways than one.  I lived among ruins of bygone ages -- castles with crumbling walls, and bustling apartments with busy apron-clad housewives.  But I also created a fairy land for myself.  One in which a nineteen year old girl could run away to Europe and live happily ever after.  Blog post by blog post I built the walls of my imaginary palace higher, never allowing myself to think that it might come tumbling down.  But it did.  And in the end, all that was left were a few years worth of empty words, a barren heart, and no one to blame but myself.

I am different now, but some days I still feel as though I live in a castle on a cloud in my head.  I tell myself that I am strong.  I tell myself that no one is tougher than me.  I repeat these things until I can face another day without feeling like an utter failure, pretending that I still believe in the power of love.  Yes, these phrases are the cornerstones of my new fortress.  I armor myself with them, even if they aren't quite true.

I'll be honest here, though.  Always.  And bitter as it makes me to say, I can no longer tell you that love can conquer all.  That one simple belief was the most defining mantra of my life for nearly twenty-three years.  I have lost an essential piece of my identity.

My greatest fear is that I'll never get it back.  Or worse, that I will.  Because, in the spirit of being honest:  I still want to have faith in happy endings.  And I am still afraid that having that faith will ruin me.

But I carry on. Things really are good in a way they hadn't been in a long time.  I may have lost one part of myself, but I've rediscovered others.  I have a spiffy banking job that I adore, and I am thriving in a position with endless opportunities for growth.  I've pulled my ambition out of the closet and rubbed away a few years worth of dust.  This new apartment has me polishing up my old independence, as well.  And my friends...  My friends remind me that at least one kind of love can last forever.

I am grateful.

I am so grateful.

I just wish I hadn't so thoroughly broken my own heart.  I've never been that great with super glue.