La douleur exquise

In the digital age, no one is really together anymore, and yet we separate anyway. Where is the justice in that?

These are the words that floated into my soul that I immediately asked Google Gemini to translate into French.

À l’ère du numérique, plus personne n’est vraiment ensemble, et pourtant nous nous séparons tout de même. Où est la justice là-dedans?

It sounds better, right?

Melancholy is so much more elegant in French. There is a whole philosophy of the existential tragedy of love or lack thereof. It felt fitting.

I’m sitting here listening to Billie Eilish, holding back the tears as I gather my bearings from the whiplash I experienced after an intoxicating connection disintegrated into the ashes of potential never realized.

Is it better to have loved and lost or never to have loved at all?

Ask me that again when I can go a whole day without crying.

Have you ever met someone who was so perfect for you in every way, except also completely wrong at the same time?

It’s like a drug, and you get addicted to the high of the mirror, the chemistry and the cinematic beauty of it all.

Then one day a message lingers longer than usual and before you know it a week has passed and all that is left is the memory of the flame and a wonder if any moments will ever feel as beautiful again.

It’s no fun to play the role of the discarded muse.

Going from the object of someone’s admiration and affection to just another stranger is physically jarring.

No wonder I feel devastated.

They have all sorts of names for it, trauma bonds, catalysts, unhealed masculines.

But at the end of the day, the word doesn’t erase the grief because they’ve vanished.

So you go back to your tool kit, the tapping, the dancing, the cringe art of bleeding your heart out onto the ink of a substack page.

It’s all part of the process now.

You know you will find your rhythm again.

You may already start to feel more regulated.

In the lavender haze of your torrid affair, you probably forgot to eat and sleep regularly.

So you’re a little more rested, a little more hydrated.

Your laundry is finally put away and your house is clean.

You might have even caught up on those projects you were procrastinating on.

But it doesn’t erase the blue.

The longing for the spark, the magic, the ping of a new message.

The thrill of being on their mind.

But the harsh truth was, their thrill was in the chase.

And they didn’t know how to care for the exotic creature in their net.

And so it goes.

Another dream shattered and the raw material for more works of art.

Where is the justice in that?