Ways I Mended My Broken Heart – Dating & Distance

My brothers were married, so I figured I should get hitched too.

I found the perfect woman — just my type. Ah, those blissful months with Linda! (Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent).

The marriage day was set, tuxedos ordered, as was cake, punch, everything even to those little doilies people set under the cups. The preacher was paid — so was the organist, photographer, and the janitor.

Then, about a week before the blessed event, Linda called to say she had second thoughts, that she felt we were like a pair of old, comfortable shoes together instead of electric moon boots. “No spark left,” you know?

So, I moved from my home state to one about 3,000 miles away. That was step one to mending my broken heart: distance. Lots and lots of distance.

There, in my new state and with a new job, I first could throw myself utterly into discovering the place. I journeyed the back roads to find the World’s Biggest Ball of Mud. I found one of the few hand-operated ferry bridges still left in the world. Yes, men pulled on ropes to haul cars and people across a rushing river. I went to concerts featuring the local taste in music. It was loud, with an annoying polka beat and featured accordions. I ate what the people ate, even if it seemed to largely consist of the entrails of mammals, sometimes hidden in a soup, sometimes not.

Secondly, I dated the local women to heal that hurtful breakup. Lots and lots of dating.

There’s this feeling right after that broken heart experience that if one is rejected by a girlfriend, one must not be worthy of any woman. So I set out to prove that wasn’t so. I dated older than me, a cougar who doused herself with gallons of “White Shoulders.” I dated younger than me, a supermarket checkout girl who was fond of popping her bubble gum at the movies and everywhere else. I dated within my career; I dated outside my career. I dated girls from the bar; I dated girls from church. “There are lots of fish in the sea,” my buddy had said, and he was right.

And in all of the wandering, I discovered that the right woman to heal your heart sometimes can’t be found — sometimes she finds you.

Glen Farquar
Age 47
Teacher