Whispers of a Troubled Heart in A Melancholic Valentine’s Message

Our love may not have been perfect, nor the best it could be, but it will always remain one of the purest, sincerest, kindest, and friendliest bonds I’ve ever known.

Feb 14, 2025

Photo by **Javier Balseiro** on **Pexels**

I see the heart in love as a delicate flower, shedding a petal with every encounter. Each experience leaves it slightly more incomplete, no matter how fully and wholly it loves. So much so that it starts feeling as though the person has lost the ability to love appropriately.

Yet, there's beauty in this fragility—because, with time, the heart can regrow its lost petals. Sometimes, it needs the gentle touch of a new lover to help it heal—but let me be clear: this isn't to place any burden on a partner. The mere willingness to love is more than enough. However, to love and express that love is also an act of assuming a healer's position. And so, we find ourselves in a cycle—a beautiful, endless loop.

Although I consider love to be one of life's greatest positive experiences, I also perceive it as not something weak people do. To love properly is to remove protective armour, to be bare, and, of course, as conventionally said, to be vulnerable. Nevertheless, this doesn't mean one cannot love without removing their armour. It is just that I perceive it may hinder the individual from receiving love even though they might be willing to give. Also, to love with your armour on could make it seemingly appear unnecessarily tedious and work-like exercise.

But let's be frank: there are times when most of us have gotten it wrong with love. Either we contributed to love wearing out and making its departure, or we rejected love only to find out it was actually real and true in the long run. Most of the time, the shame and saddest aspect of this kind of love encounter is that you loved each other but were both too young to know how to love. Sometimes, as an adult or someone who has learned through love experiences how to love better, you may reflect and have a bittersweet smile from the memories of the insignificant things you fought about or that made you part ways.

In another instance, there are times when you reach an impasse with love—a point where there is nothing else to feel. Simply put, you both reach different junctures, and one or two of you cannot compromise to follow a single path. This becomes the harder goodbyes. Since you both know you love each other but cannot stay together.

But there are also times when we have absolutely gotten it wrong with love—faulting incredibly to the point that we feel like disappearing when we think about what we have done. Or we feel a degree of bitterness, grief, and regret that we wish we could inflict physical pain on ourselves so that we can at least alleviate the pain our heart bears. There are things that an ordinary sorry can't fix, which is why sometimes we sincerely hope life will allow us a moment in the future to make it up to them or, at least, that karma will be gentler on us.

This kind of heartache inspires artists to sing, writers to write, and poets to compose the most heartbreaking words. We are left longing to reach out to them by any means, but we can't. In part because we don't want to disturb their newfound peace or simply because we are overwhelmed with shame to the point of lacking words to express clearly the emotions in our hearts.

Nevertheless, there is another perspective to this kind of love encounter—the dimension where our collective human brokenness or insecurities get the best of us. Or, in my case, a period when we are in a dark place in life and end up hurting anyone who dares to come close to us—just like a wounded wild animal would do. This person may be the only piece-string of hope that keeps us going in those times, but they may be where we express all the anger and bitterness we feel towards life itself.

Tell me, how can someone who, in those moments, holds almost half of your heart end up being the only person you wish to ignore? Because we desire to feel pain in all areas of life. We turn them into our emotional punchbags. Building up, this presents a situation where we end up bleeding on someone who is bleeding. Lowkey, we desire to quickly move away from our darkness into light and surprise them with the gift of newness for loving us. We want them to be proud of us - of how genuine and tenderly we, too, can love. Sadly, change is constant, and this change can also happen to love's enduring strength.

I pushed love too far away. Even though I sincerely loved, cherished, respected, and cared about her. This was when I experienced challenges I had never imagined existed in life, not to talk more about them happening to me. I was broken. I suffered terrible anxiety. Most nights, I couldn't sleep. I was insecure - I didn't want her to see how weak I, too, could be. I didn't want her to see me afraid. I was frustrated and always talked about death. And I thought the only way to express it was to joke around about it.

Love eventually starts feeling threatened. She complained that her self-esteem was compromised and that she felt unvalued, so she left. Whereas, I was only a boy, and I had my insecurities. Some days, I felt like I would never be rich enough to give her the kind of life I desire to provide her. Then I become unnecessarily angry those days - probably even lashing out at or withdrawing from her.

I also start to question her life choices and sense of judgment. Within me, something always screams, 'How can you love me still even when I feel nothing but hatred for myself?' I wish things were different for most of us with similar experiences. I wish that they met us now, under different circumstances and intentional self-development that we have done - or at least, I wish they endured a little bit more or gave us a second chance when we came back to our senses to see how far we have changed with our mindset towards loving.

Come what may, we find peace with moving forward. We learn how to forgive and stop being angry with ourselves. We actively seek to do better in the future as we approach similar situations by reflecting on our past mistakes and how we felt or actions that could be improved.

From the deepest and sincerest part of our hearts, we will wish them well and pray they achieve their dreams. We hope they find someone who, at least, would love them sincerely like we did - but, perhaps, shows it to them more than we could ever do. Lastly, we hope they try to remember us from time to time. And we hope that when they do that, they don't see us as wicked people who took advantage of their love. But instead, as an insecure/immature lover who naively trades a treasure in pursuit of an unknown dream.

When two people in love break up, they cannot be friends as they have hurt each other. Neither can they become enemies as once they love each other. The only thing they can be is the most familiar strangers…!!!

It is a Lover's Day celebration. Beyond this day, I see love as a force that is scattered all around us in different forms. We also feel and receive it in various shades. Sometimes, we even have a preference that could differ from the others - it is referred to as 'Love Language.' Nevertheless, I hope my message helps you think about it a little bit differently today in addition to how you have always done. Or at least, I hope it helps you reflect on how we are all imperfect lovers looking for perfect love!

Many thanks for reading my perspective and giving feedback.

My fervent wish is for the personal growth of everyone and the success of all young professionals who put their hearts and souls into finding their purpose in life.

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