“Letters to a Broken Heart” is a collaborative writing project between Sophia Hembeck & Lachrista Greco.
After seeing an Instagram story about Lachrista’s breakup Sophia took a screenshot of her words not knowing that a few days later she would break up with her partner as well. The duo started writing letters to each other about their heartbreak. Each Sunday for the month of September, Sophia will be posting her letters to Lachrista’s newsletter, and Lachrista will be posting hers on Sophia’s newsletter.
If you want to follow our journey make sure you are subscribed to both of us.
Read Lachrista’s response, the sixth letter here.
Lachrista Greco, 24th June 2022:
“Ended my relationship tonight with someone I’m totally in love with because he’s unable to be emotionally in it anymore for a lot of reasons & kept pushing me away. Life goes on, I guess. I’m sad but ok. First time ever that I have broken up with someone. And I really didn’t want to…”
Sophia Hembeck, 30th June 2022:
“this is me now. heartbroken. newly single. no regrets.”
Dear Lachrista,
it took me a while to answer your letter, at first it was because I needed some time to think, to come to a conclusion of some sort, to describe the state that I was/am in but and now it turns out that maybe this is the real problem in the first place: me thinking so much, repeating imaginary conversations about things that happened in the past and trying to figure out (again), looking for answers (again). – I got lost, stuck in a loop of waking up every morning somehow worse than the day before. As if I was traveling back in time instead of moving forward. And I didn’t understand why.
I wanted to tell you how I thought that dating people with a sort of peter pan syndrome which I have done in the past somehow reflects back on me and what I don’t want to look at inside myself. That maybe I work out these questions externally with another person instead of coming to terms with myself. For instance: I say I want to have a family someday and be in a steady relationship yet my choices tell a different story. Looking at the track record of people that I have dated and looking at their lives now: None of them have been or are in the kind of committed long-term relationship that I always claim to want and none of them got married or has children. Because that’s not who they are or what they want.
I also wanted to tell you how I understand how frustrating it is that it is never just one thing. Like your back injury putting you in additional pain. That heartbreak does not happen in a vacuum. And that I hope you are recovering well.
I had two phone calls with my ex in the last few days. I finally found a room in a flat, I am finally able to start that new chapter and find some ground to stand on again. I can finally remove my furniture from his place, pack up the rest of my stuff. – And burn that bridge for good. I should be ecstatic and relieved yet instead I found myself asking him the same questions again: “Why did you stop loving me?”
The other day I was out with some friends and ended up with a guy that I just met that night in a dimly lit, pretty empty bar. There were expectations on how I wanted the night to end. But he typed on his phone, occasionally asked a few questions but mostly monologing, painting a different picture. He told me how he hasn’t had a serious relationship in the last eight years only ever making it to 2-3 months, and that his ex with whom he was friends with was going to sleep over for a night because she was visiting on a holiday and needed accommodation and whether that means they would absolutely fuck and that he generally falls in love with women that are unavailable to him. - I know.
He was a walking red flag. Or in other words: not interested in me. And I figured that out pretty quickly. Mostly because it was insultingly obvious. Still, I could feel myself glued to the table, ordering another drink. Listening and smiling and waiting for approval? to change his mind? for something else to happen?
I decided that that drink would be my last, and when I finally got up – because none of the above happened – I walked home in a sort of fury. I knew I had just been in the wrong room. I had been advertising to the wrong crowd. Interestingly I didn’t even find him that attractive or funny or charming. I just wanted him to be in this story to confirm something.
When you wrote how you are putting yourself aside in order to receive love, how you don’t want to rock the boat, be the cool girl, I could have written the same thing.
And I think it is that the line between sacrifice and compromise is hard to detect. We know that relationships are work and that there is a sort of compromise when you are trying to build a life together. And with that in mind, we take hardships and problems. But that doesn’t mean sacrificing yourself for it.
And I know that you know this because I know this and knew it, we all keep talking about it on our Instagram stories and to our friends over glasses of wine: Don’t give yourself up for someone else. Don’t accept crumbs. You deserve better. But I don’t think that until now I actually understood where the line is.
Or why I sacrificed so much of myself.
A friend of mine send me a voice message today saying: “You were so conscious in that relationship and working so hard on it” and it just struck me because that is exactly the thing. I somehow believe that you can work with everything. That I can will things to be different if I just work hard enough.
Maybe I just don’t believe that love is free?
Deep down. Somewhere is the idea that I have to prove myself first, suffer, and make myself eligible.
That’s the pattern.
A few days ago I thought I was stuck in a loop, that I was not getting better, not moving forward. I always pictured moving on as the result of healing. Now I see that I am moving faster than I ever have. And it is dizzying. That I am actually understanding something about myself, fully seeing my core wound. It’s painful because it forces me to acknowledge and choose a different path. One that I am not familiar with. It forces me to hold out, to pause, to say no to everyone that is not meeting my needs, and not know if anyone ever will.
“There is no true life within a false life.” A great sentiment by Theodor W. Adorno a German philosopher and something I have been absolutely ignoring for the past years. Sometimes I blame it on the fact that being a writer often leads to writing and re-writing stories about your own life in a way that sort of makes one quite delusional. But that’s only a mechanism I use. The truth is every time I heard a little voice telling me: “I think you should better leave,” or “You actually don’t enjoy it here,” or “This is utter bullshit!” my mind was only orientated toward the goal of being in a relationship. I didn’t care about the how and just cared about the fact that as long as it looked enough like one, resembled one, that would be enough. As long as I could make up a story, an excuse. To protect myself from disappointment.
I still don’t know what it feels like to say no to people who are almost right. Who could be but are not. But I can’t wait to actually believe it when I say: I would rather be alone than with the wrong person. I can’t wait to meet that future me. I don’t want to let her down.
Sending lots of love,
Sophia
Sophia Hembeck is a writer and visual artist based in Edinburgh. She is the author of the hybrid memoir/essay collection “Things I Have Noticed” and is writing the weekly Muse Letter on Substack.
Read Lachrista’s response, the sixth letter here.