Sadness Hurts

So.  America, my appreciation for you is going to have to wait.  Sorry, but my elation for being home has been put on the back burner and my jet lag has been replaced with a little bit of sadness.

It’s something everyone will go through.  Probably most of you already have, many of you multiple times.  But lucky for me (I guess), at 27 it’s my first heartache.  I won’t say heartbreak because my heart is made up of too many things to break because of one little piece but that piece was important to me and it left an abrupt hole.

I am not going to go into details because it’s not fair nor is it anyone else’s business but I was shocked at what my body did after I realized that the person I thought I would spend most of this summer with wouldn’t be a part of my life anymore.

I had heard that you feel physical pain after a breakup but I had never actually experienced it.  My last relationship was just a slow decline and a mutual separation that I had seen coming and something that was just a natural progression.  But this? This hurt worse than any bruise or, quite honestly, break that I’ve suffered from my many years of sports.  This was a pain that you can’t stick an ice pack on or take a pill for.

I always thought when this breakup happened (deep down I always knew it would) that I would find solace in my friends and want to have them around to support me.  I was wrong.  All I wanted to do was go somewhere and be alone.  Thanks to my lifestyle, however, I don’t have a place of my own (a room, a house, an anything really) so I did the next best thing and headed to a friend’s on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, Maine.

When I was driving away my head was pounding, I mean who has got the jackhammer kind of pounding. I’ve had headaches before but this was different, this was somehow connected to my being sad.  And I’ve thought about it and I can only explain it this way:  It’s like, your brain is surrounded in water inside your head and once you cry all of the water out your brain expands to fill the void, therefore pushing on your head and making it feel like it might actually explode.   An emotion can make you physically hurt like that?  That was new to me.

That and puking.  Not actually puking but that throw up feeling you get when you realize crap is going to change, when you realize it’s going to change fast and against your will, really.  That one surprised me.  I can’t remember the last time I threw up (drunk or otherwise) and the fact that a feeling in my heart might make me lose my lunch really baffled me.  You just get to thinking how much of a lie some things were and it literally makes you sick.

It’s only been a few days and I only felt like throwing up once since that first day and that was caused by a “let’s forget life for a night hangover.”  (My brain hasn’t caused my head to explode yet, either.)

I have to laugh at all the feelings that go through your mind in a matter of 24 hours: sadness, anger, laughter, serenity, emptiness, confidence, disbelief, self-consciousness, rage… I guess the only thing that’s missing in that first day is pure joy and I have a feeling that one is right around the corner.

Danielle Clark

About Danielle Clark

I am 28 years old and for 5 years out of college I played basketball for a living. I was a professional basketball player in Europe so I spent most of my years there and came back to Maine for summers and a couple weeks at Christmas time. I thought my years there would open my eyes to what I want to be when I "grow up." That didn't happen. I have discovered, however, that I just have to try something. Just do things and toss myself into them. I have currently tossed myself into being a college basketball assistant coach and one on one reading tutor. I grew up in Corinna, Maine and have been a resident Mainer. I love sports, reading, writing, cooking, baking, watching movies... everything. I have lots of hobbies and not enough time in the day!