>>> How to survive...

Death.

There are worse things than death.

Indeed, it is true, if cliché, what some villains of the silver screen say, that there are worse things than death.

In so saying, there is also something else that can be said about these "things" that are worse than death:

You'll be surprised what you can live through.

It's true.

After all, one of the things that can be worse than death is heartbreak. It can bring you to the brink, leaving you hanging by a nail, maybe a thread of sinew, and you'd wonder what would it be like to just let go. Sometimes, in some cases, it's like a near-death experience. Or even comparable to a first brush with death.

Some would say that heartbreak is a death of sorts. The death of a love, even. Someone once told me that it felt like his heart was literally shriveling up and dying by the yard. I can't say that I felt that way, but, personally, it's always left me feeling empty inside, like something tore my heart out and poured cold, nebulous vacuum from space into my chest cavity.

But at the end of it all, you're still pretty much stuck in place with the thoughts of the women you've loved waltzing through your mind with alarmingly frequency.

And, then, horrifyingly, perhaps you realize that there's only space in your heart for one but you know that it'll never happen but you can't quite let go, so, it's a I'm-sorry-that-room-isn't-for-rent-or-sale-can't-have-it-thanks-have-a-nice-life-bye kinda thing if any other women end up entering your life. Or it'll end up coloring your future relationships in stark shades, in a horrid contrast to your past. Which might be even more horrifying.

Plus, Fate may keep throwing you curveballs by setting up happenstance run-ins with at least one of them in places that you least expect, with random phone-calls and text messages out of the blue from the far side of the moon. But you'll be nice, even when everything inside of you screams bloody murder while being thrown through and shredded by the industrial meat grinder that are your emotions and metaphorical heart.

And you don't know whether you want something more or less from that person. You can't decide whether you want that person to disappear from your life for-freaking-ever or to always have them there. And there's no real middle ground.

You just can't make up your mind at all which will send your mind into a vortex of frustration, angst, pain and sorrow, with perhaps a little sorrow thrown in for good measure, which it may or may not exit in one functioning piece.

But you'll survive, you'll get over it soon enough.

Even if you feel somewhat lobotomized by the whole chained series of events.

After two failed relationships in under a year and the 'death' of something before it even began, it makes me wonder how on earth do you ever get over such an event, let alone a chain of them? And how long does it take before you feel "back to normal"? What kind of closure is required for the chapter to be ended, to reach le fin?

I have no clue.

None what-so-ever.

And, yes, I'm still on this trip, this godforsaken path to somewhere that's hopefully not here. No, I'm not completely A-OK, even after such a long period of time. I can't keep up the facade of being alright and functioning with everyone, sorry.

My closest friends know how I really feel and have been feeling over the past year. It has been a constant source of frustration for me and of some irritation to my familia, my extended family of friends.

Does that make me a hypocrite? For keeping up a mask and appearances around most people, but dropping it with the closest people to myself?

Probably.

Not that I care about that. Much.

It's hard to be okay, I guess. The pain is still there, hiding in shadowy corners, being vague and then incredibly sharp. And, yet, there is that contradictory feeling of happiness and pride when speaking about either of my somewhat recent two exes, the stories of, what were to me, very important and interesting memories, that war with the after-recital feelings of nostalgic sadness and incompleteness.

And, perhaps, it's even harder to "get over it" since it can't quite reconcile with my hardwired [romantic] belief that, regardless of what happens, a part of one's self will always love them.

Perhaps it's a lesson or even a test. Or even one gigantic joke woven by the Fates.

Who the hell knows?

And we've already established that I certainly don't.

So, I try to distract myself.

Bury myself in any kind of work. Lose a job. Hang out with my friends as much as possible. Throw myself into projects that may or may not see fruition. Look for a new vocation. Smoke. Go to new places, try new things. Read webcomics and online stories of any kind. Read more books. Look at girls, random and known. Maybe unknowingly flirt if they stop to give me the time of day. Skate. Buy stuff online. Stumble across porn and watch for less than five minutes before realizing that my mind has better ideas about sex. Think. Get tattooed. Compose lyrics and poetry. Make crazy plans for the future that may never happen. Go for counselling to beat and break the steel of negativity that binds and constricts me. Smoke helluva lot more. Eat over irregular periods. Go out late with no real agenda. Play silly Facebook games. Skate more. Get physically hurt while skating. Smoke a little more to ease the pain on a psychological level. Sleep late and get kicked out of bed for no real reason. Lie to the rest of the world that I'm okay when I'm not. Hit a club. Dance. Get wasted. Smoke even more. Draw. Sketch. Write. Blog. Sleep. Dream.

Rinse, wash, repeat.

Until either I break or I get through and over.

Even while claiming to the world that I'm over it all.

So, yes, there is something worse than death.

Bitches, please. Y'all survive. Maybe live even.

I'm right here and I know.

Right now, I barely EXIST.

But, somehow...

... I'll survive.

We all will.

Somehow.

... a car wreck of a heart, after the fact.