The fifth component of Heartache

The fifth component of heartache is fear. Fear of eternal emptiness. The feeling that the rest of your life it will be devoid of emotion now that you have lost the loved one’s companionship. You realize that events or experiences which before would have moved, thrilled or saddened you now leave you cold. You have the impression that since the loved one left you, you no longer really feel anything. This is when you being worrying about the fifth component. You wonder whether this numbing of your senses might be permanent. Naturally, you will go on working, meeting new people, experiencing new things and having affairs. You might even marry someone who is in love with you, but all this will only vaguely interest you – like those television programmes we watch because we are too lazy to decide to do something else. Your life may still be varied, but it will interest you about as much as a variety show, that’s to say very little. And still you will have to endure every dull moment of it, day in day out.

By now, of course, the other components of heartache will gradually have faded: you will no longer feel you need the other, just as a drug addicts who haven’t used for a long time no longer need their drug. Sometimes, a place, a tune, a scent will stir the memory of the loved ones, you will feel a sudden rush of neediness and your friends will notice a momentary lapse in your concentration. They will have the impression from looking at your face that you are passing through an invisible cloud.

Some people will understand and quickly try to distract you or lead you away, in the same way that you avoid leaving a recovering alcoholic in front of a bar for too long. In fact, you will became like those alcoholics who manage to overcome their addiction by drinking only water, but who confess that their lives were more intense, more colorful, more fun when alcohol was their companion. You may confess to being bored with your life now, an the truth is sometimes you will make quite dull company, while still being peasant enough.

The fifth component’s only advantage is that it will enable you to deal more calmly with life’s everyday adversities and upsets, like a sailor who has braved the Roaring Forties and keeps his cool in a squall that would make other men tremble. So that is one reassuring thought, which you will be at pains to cultivate: what happened between you and the loved one will eventually have made you a stronger and calmer, and you will even end up believing ib the value of this calmness, achieved at great costs, until the moment when a place, a tune, a scent….

Hector and the secrets of love – Francois Lelord