Letters to a Broken Heart | Vol. 3
"Being loved is not a trade-off for how loveable you esteem yourself to be."
“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 of healing from heartbreak, make sure you are subscribed to both of us.
Read Lachrista’s response, the fourth 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,
haze is rolling over Edinburgh after four sunny days, the cool air is reaching out, through my open window – like you I believe in magic of some sort. Of messages sent to us, signs to read, that whatever resonates has meaning, maybe not truth or fortune-telling, but meaning for us.
Each morning I draw a tarot card. Today it was the reversed Six of Swords. It says: “When the reversed Six of Swords shows up in a Tarot reading, you may be going through a personal or spiritual transition or rite of passage so you can leave behind a relationship, belief, or behavioural pattern that is no longer serving you. This is an intensely personal and private journey, and you are working in isolation to make it happen. You have identified what you must release to embrace a new way of thinking and are now bringing it to fruition in your personal life.”
In my last letter, I wrote how I feel like someone pushed me on a boat, exiled me. The Six of Swords depicts exactly that image: A woman and a child leaving, being rowed across a body of water towards a nearby land. Their heads are bowed, a posture of sadness and grief, they don’t want to leave but have no other choice. With them on the boat are six swords, like a fence they are blocking the view of the calm waters in front of them. Symbolising remains of the past, memories I still hold onto.
Last night I sat next to a river in the Scottish Borders, camping with some friends, watching the full moon rise, watching the Perseid meteor shower, shooting stars all over the sky, and making wishes. I caught myself for an instance wishing for something out of reflex – I guess my true desire – that I don’t like to admit to myself: I wished for him to love me better. To be together but different. But then quickly changing it in horror, why would I wish for that?! And my mind raced to look for something that I really need right now: money, a flat, stability.
I’m still homeless of some sort. Which sounds way too dramatic but is actually just a fact, a piece of information, a state that I am in right now, in between places. Not fully moved out, my furniture and THINGS still at his, but also not living there since we broke up. Sleeping at friends’ houses, using their guestrooms instead, temporary homes that I fill with flowers and smells of incense and meditation in the morning.
Everything can be used as a stepping stone if one is not too fussy: The attempts to get better, all lead somehow forward. I started a movement therapy, called the Alexander Technique. I’ve been wanting to change my posture for many years and when your life blows up and the pieces around have settled, it’s time to rebuild again. One of the concepts is about resisting impulses. To stop endgaming, meaning to resist the urge of the bigger picture, the goal-centered approach and focus on the steps to get there, to create options, to actually choose.
I guess, I forgot for a long time during the relationship that I had those. Not seeing all the stones in front of me, choosing where to go next.
You wrote that you “wonder what it's like to have a love that stays; a love that grows with you; a love that chooses to show up every day.” And I ask myself the same. I ask myself why have I accepted less? Because I think you’re right. You know already. You have these bonds in your life. With friendships and family. “You would have never let anyone, not any of your friends get away with this kind of behaviour,” a friend of mine told me bluntly the other day. And she was right. I don’t. I’m sassy when it comes to bullshit. I am frank and I know what I want.
I know this is inherently about self-worth and options. And somewhere there I have collected lies, things that aren’t true about how much you should be handling: It should never be this hard to love someone.
I know this now. But what I wish for you and for myself is that we hold onto that, that we don’t forget, that we demand more, if anything. Being loved is not a trade-off for how loveable you esteem yourself to be.
The other day I thought about how much compassion I was willing to give to the other person and the excuses that I made for them, the allowances. And how harshly I judge myself in contrast, how seldom I let myself get away with things. And how unfair that is. So I decided to love myself exactly that way. This bold and gracious love I possess, to take it and to pour it all over me and let myself feel it for once. It was magical to see me through that light: I never want to stop doing that.
I hope you can see yourself the same way because – like everyone – you deserve it, too.
Sending lots of love,
Sophia
Read Lachrista’s response, the fourth letter here.
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.