‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Is it? Well I think so…

It is a sentiment that is very hard to agreed with when you’re in the depths of a break up. The pain, the loss and all the other issues that come with it. The months and years it can take to move on from a relationship, whatever the reason for it ending can make you wonder why you bothered.

I’m always fancying and falling for people. I think most of my friends and family will not only vouch, but volunteer embarrassing stories of me as admirer and admired. I’m a drama queen and love the romance of it all. But when it comes down to it I can be honest and say there are few times that I have been truly heartbroken. Four times in fact. Four significant times when things have gone hideously wrong and my world has come crashing down. Three of them by the time I was 20.

After the third I shut down and shut off. I thought lots. And lots. I thought I fancied people. But I didn’t feel. I didn’t want to feel. Why go through it all again? Why get hurt? Why not just find someone you could be comfortable and happy with but not have to risk the full on love stuff for?

Number one I ended. Number two was the closest thing to spontaneous combustion. Number three was completely out of the blue. I wasn’t expecting it and it happened. Coming from a family where meeting the love of your life at 19 was the norm I was pretty much written off as ‘settled’. But one day it was no more. I fought back for about a month, tried to save the relationship. When I realised that it really was over I cried for a couple of days. Then I shut off. For about 18 months. Until I began the process of starting to get over the relationship. And it took twice that time and Number 4 to make me get through it.

It was at that point I started to understand that it was worth it. The incredible pain of loss was eventually outweighed by happy memories and all the things I’d gained from each of these individuals. They had all got me to where I was now. Little things I had done and experienced with each of them contributed to the way I’d moved forward in my life. And they’d taught me about love, relationships, myself. I learned a lot about things I didn’t like about myself, as well as the things I did. And my horizons broadened, I learned so much from their lives and experiences. Number three may have torn my world apart but also introduced me to Spain. Spain I fell in love with, and to date has never dumped me or made me feel bad!

Then back in 2007 number four showed up. No 4 wasn’t a bolt out of the blue. No 4 was a slow simmering friendship that was so much more. No 4 made me want to knock down those stupid flipping walls I’d built up around myself and feel again. So I did. It wasn’t easy. It took me to a) decide they were worth it & b) battle against my natural instinct to run away and hide behind thinking too much. And what d’ya know. I did it.

Unfortunately the moral of this tale doesn’t involve a gallant knight in shining armour atop a white horse. It was actually almost a year of pain with a few highlights of happiness that somehow made me believe it would all be ok in the end (whilst also driving my friends insane). What had I got for deciding to ‘feel’ again? Chewed up and spat out. There was no fairy tale ending.

But you know what. I felt again. At times (not all times) I was quite happy that I was so deeply upset. Finally something had properly affected me again. I remembered that the highs of being with someone are worth the lows that go with it. The experience of hurting was enough to make me not regret the ‘relationship’. It was also enough to make me move on and leave all four in the past (something I hadn’t quite got round to doing yet, I’m good at procrastination!)

So I’m with Tennyson on this one. I’ve loved, I’ve learned, I’ve lost, I’ve survived. It’s all been worth it. And now I’ve got back on this boat I’m not giving up… after all I’d be stupid to give up now. Five is my lucky number!