Broken Heart Secrets

I’d been married 20 years when Fred walked out on me to marry his sweetie-pie. So this was no minor heartbreak.

What did I do? I got busy. My fulltime job wasn’t enough.

I returned to the book I had been writing, and quickly finished it and sent it to New York.

I signed up for three graduate classes in English.

I joined the gym and bought memberships for my son and daughter.

Two nights a week I drove straight from work to the university, stopping on the way to grab a meager supper of a boiled egg, celery, a quarter of a tomato, two olives, and a dollop of ranch dressing. The other three weeknights, and Saturday after class, I took the kids to the gym; afterwards we went to a frozen yogurt shop.

The classes were fascinating, especially the one which featured Jungian criticism. I learned enough Jungian psychology from it to figure out why Fred had left, and realize it was no failure on my part. It was the result of his failure to accept his own mortality.

I didn’t have time to think about heartbreak. I married again a year later, to a much nicer husband.