OXLAEYMy Broken Heart or What it Feels like When Your Stomach Is Sucked Out through your Navel with a Rusty Vacuum Cleaner
The next few months started off magically. Claire and I met in London, we weekended in York, we strolled though Paris, she came to Berlin for New Year’s. We talked or texted almost every day. I was smitten. I was ready. Was this it? Yes, fate was on my side. Claire was the one. Now I had it all. A high-paying job, a vintage apartment in Berlin, a show-stopping girlfriend who also dreamed about traveling the world (and hated her lobbying job).
Still today, when I’m brave enough to listen to Robert Glasper’s jazz album “Double Booked”, I’m teleported back to London’s grey, wet, sky – floating with Claire through the city. The music jabs and squeaks searching for a fresh edge to old notes. Those beautiful chord changes riding a harmonic roller coaster, they paralleled what I felt. It was like being new again. My body felt light and easy. My heart jumped like it did when I was 18.
In February, when I asked her about her feelings for me, she paused. Then she said… nothing. I closed my eyes and told myself, it will work out. You have worked so hard all these years, it is your time.
She called at 1 am to tell me her “feelings had changed”. It was a day before the Easter weekend 2013, and she was scheduled to spend it with me in Berlin. I had planned a big romantic weekend – from tickets to a dance performance, fine dining to underground black-lit mini golf. She couldn’t say why her feelings had changed, but they had. I didn’t know what do say except “ok” and “goodbye”. It felt like my stomach had been sucked out by an invisible vacuum cleaner and I walked around Berlin the entire weekend frozen.
Love is for people who are ready to dream big and risk everything. Unfortunately, so is prison.
A few days later, Claire and I talked on the phone again. I had asked her if she could share with me why things had changed, a kind of debriefing session. The call didn’t reveal anything. She didn’t know why her feeling had changed – or perhaps she didn’t want to share anymore than that with me. I was simutaniously crushed because it was over but somehow also joyful inside, realizing I was still able to feel love.
Still, for so many years I had been searching for someone. For a person to protect, to hide inside of, to love. All I needed was a great career, a rack of suits and ties, a dynamic circle of friends and a cool personality. So why didn’t I get the girl? Were my premises wrong? I had experienced again how spectacular it felt to be in love. Now, again, I felt the flip side, the black, nuclear winter of rejection. My anger flared. I trashed everything, every picture, every email, every text message.
I turned the camera on. Here is what I felt a few minutes after the call.
Quote from “Love Illuminated” by Daniel Jones
