a moment of truth

top 10 things a person can do to mend a broken heart

10. ride the trains, like a hobo or a lady of leisure... towards foreign and exotic locales (i.e. the 'SURFliner')
9. Pretend you are far far far far away from home/source of heartache and do whatever necessary to promulgate this illusion/fantasy further (to reference a quote from my mother: "Feelings are really really hard. That's why people become drug addicts and alcoholics and have eating disorders...")
8. Make friends with strangers (especially groups of traveling musicians) in hotel lobbies, go to their rooms with them, play music and jump on the bed until 5 in the morning.
7. Take a dip in a pool or the ocean (Horse Shoe beach in La Jolla is dreamy and a hidden, and therefore, underpopulated GEM).
6. Go on a road trip with 1 to 4 friends of the same gender, laughing and singing all the way.
5. Go to Swallows Inn Bar in San Juan Capistrano, CA. It's an ACTUAL old saloon and there are real cowboys on the rodeo circuit in there and a great band and dance contests every Saturday night and the locals are just CRAZY there.
4. Drink a bottle of wine and then go skinny dipping with you aunt, or another same-sex family member.
3. Eat gelato while watching the seals slumber at sunset while connecting with yet another stranger. [Perhaps, a bench-sharing tourist from Lousiana with the deepest N'Orleans twang who lost EVERYTHING in Katrina but has a tremendous joie de vivre nevertheless. ...Now, that puts things in perspective.]
2. Exercise. Run. Swim. Walk. Work. Play. A Game. A sleepover. Diversions.
1. Be in the feeling when it passes over you like a tsunami wave that kicks up the ocean surface of every memory you ever shared. And churns it through your entire body. ... Be in it. Feel it. Let it wash over you and let it pass.

The good times were real. They were shared. And even if your life may be different than you had imagined it, imagined it maybe without even realizing that indeed you had VIVIDLY IMAGINED it... things will work out. You will be good. A door closes and suddenly you are moving and you are seeking and engaged with yourself more fully... and other doors open.

(the sound of many doors opening. windows too. ... BREEZE ... fresh ... light)