We are taught to fear a broken heart. We are taught to fear rejection, being unwanted. But as a self professed smart girl, I think there are worse things.
I think the worst thing that can happen is to be made a fool of.
When your heart gets broken, your friends will bring you ice cream and tell you that you were too good for him, that he was immature, that he led you on, that it isn’t your fault. When your heart gets broken, you are still you, just a little damaged.
When you’re made a fool of, your friends will throw each other sidelong glances because they knew this was coming. They saw it coming every night you couldn’t fall asleep and dissected his text messages out loud, they saw it coming every time he bailed on you. They saw it coming when the most you heard from him was after 11 pm. When you’re made a fool of, you aren’t you, somewhere along the way you lost your independence, your self possession, the ability to not text back because you know this story doesn’t end well for you.
There’s a difference between being a fool for love, and being a plain idiot. Being a fool for love means letting go, it means kicking those training wheels curbside, it means letting yourself love with everything you’ve got and that’s a hell of a lot. It’s scary, it’s unnerving, and it just may the best thing to ever happen to you. Even if you get your heart broken, in the process, loving like is that something you never forget.
Being an idiot means writing poetry for a boy who doesn’t know your middle name. You’ll find yourself up at 2 am reaching for your journal because you fell for him from the inside out and at 20 years old that just doesn’t happen too often. He’s one of those roman candles you read about and in his light even you shined a little brighter. But to him you were just a sputtering match.
There are things worse than a broken heart.
Diary of a mad brown girl 