The Loss Of Young Love: From Heartache To Wisdom

Surviving the loss of young love is possible, but it can also mean the loss of innocence and the beginning of caution. A poignant story. 

This post is part of a special series on Survivor Stories, where we share and celebrate the stories of women who believe they are survivors. 

I have been wanting to write this story and get  it out of my system for a long while. It was one of the defining moments in life, a heartache so deep that it makes itself heard even eight years later. In retrospect it feels that I was such a stupid girl and so naive to obsess over something so silly, but back then it was so real, that nothing seemed more important than that.

This went on for over a month when I was in Delhi. He was stationed somewhere in the other side of the world, with limited connectivity. And I had truckloads of work during the day. But each day I found myself going back to the conversation from the previous night and it made me smile. Oh, how it made me smile. Each word, each thought, each anecdote of his. His voice felt like a pure miracle in my ears.

Then about 2-3 months later, he was scheduled to come to Mumbai. I danced with joy at the prospect of meeting him. Each day was a countdown to the day when I would finally meet him. He offered to take me out on a date, to his local chaiwala. Because that is where he hung out with his friends when in Mumbai. But I insisted on going to a coffee shop. There was this air of melancholy to him, which I found so endearing that my stomach still contracts at the thought of him.

His mom had run away from home and married his dad when she was 21, had two kids and was then back at her father’s house because they did not get along well. And this guy had not spoken to his father since the last 10 years. I found that hard to believe. Sometimes you so badly want to set things right in somebody’s life that you totally forget that it is not possible. It is out of your purview. But when in love, nothing seems impossible.

Sometimes you so badly want to set things right in somebody’s life that you totally forget that it is not possible.

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So we met. My heart skipped a beat. He was more handsome than the photos. We were in the coffee shop for 4 hours. Those were the shortest 4 hours in my life till then.

Later that day his mom went ballistic on him. She was afraid that we might make the same mistake that she did. He called me the next day explaining that we could not continue this further. It was over even before it started. I wanted to meet him just once, to try to get some kind of a closure.  A week later, we met again. My heart wont give me a closure, but it was over nonetheless. I spent the next one month crying at the drop of a hat. I did not want to do anything with life. Just sit at home and mope. My mom knew something was wrong, but I did not want to come out of the cave of isolation and tears.

I had the biggest exam of my life around the corner – the CA final exam and hence went on study leave for 4 months. Even in those 4 months, I hardly spoke to anybody except mom, dad and my brother. My best friend and a very close colleague knew about him, but nobody else in this world had any clue what had happened to the otherwise effervescent me. I felt shitty inside. I missed him so much, it did not feel real. I studied and then studied some more.

Then the day my exams were about to begin, he called me out of the blue. To wish me best of luck. I felt kicked in the gut. But somehow I managed to give the exam, and then we decided to meet the day my exam was over. He suggested that we should get back together. It was difficult to not to. I was anxious and hurt. But may be it could still happen.

Hope again started blossoming in the corner of my heart. How silly, silly of me. He disappeared again a few days later, off on some ship and I had no clue how to pick up the pieces of my life again. It was over, once and for all.

Was it time that healed the scar of a young heart just learning to fall in love or was it the second blow that set right the dent made by the first one?

Was it time that healed the scar of a young heart just learning to fall in love or was it the second blow that set right the dent made by the first one? I am not sure what, but it made me stronger than I ever was. But nothing before or after that hurt as much as it did. Only unfulfilled love is romantic, they say. This was it.

In comparison to losing a parent or child, or losing a job, or getting disabled, the loss of love seems like a small thing. But at 21, at the time that it is happening, where you know no other deeper sorrow that this, it feels like the end of the world. And it was the end of the me that existed before him. I am cautious ever since to love someone so much that they can hurt you so badly.

Four years back, I met and married my husband, and he is everything that I wished for. And now after the birth of my son, it is not possible to love them half-heartedly. So I feel myself coming back. But the old heartache still persists. Somewhere in the corner, it still does.

Young couple image via Shutterstock

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