The other day, I participated in a discussion with the former director of the "Museum of Broken Relationships" in Los Angeles. The museum itself began in Croatia and is based on an interesting concept: average people donated remnants of defunct relationships with brief explanations about why the donation was significant. People contributed everything from broken GPSs to empty picture frames (and a whole lot more that was just plain bizarre).
One of the most popular and profound donations was a collection of handmade paper roses. The contributor made each rose from a page of poetry that they and their former flame loved, and each stem was a note from the contributor to the former flame. And, the story behind it went something like this: We met and instantly connected. You always seemed to be busy and we never saw each other. We'd talk for hours and loved all the same things. All I could think about was you. I made this bouquet and brought it to your job because I figured it was time for do or die: you'd either welcome me or reject me but I need to know. But when I got there, they said they'd never heard of anyone by your name. And you never answered my call again.
Now take a moment and think about what you just read. Who did you picture these people to be? I automatically assumed a woman wrote it about a man. In reality, a man wrote it about a woman. What's fascinating about this is that the director said invariably, guests would envision their gender identity as the author and the gender identity they date as the former flame. In other words, we understand the pain and see it as our own because, chances are, we've experienced something similar.
I've been thinking about this a lot because it reminds me of loss and how isolating it is. I know I felt like nobody could possibly understand how I felt because our relationship and the circumstances of Bill's death were so specific to us and where we were in life. And while it is true that no one can know exactly what I was thinking and feeling, stories like the one above show the universality of loss. We all have experienced heartbreak, and we all will experience loss if we haven't already. There's something strangely comforting in that to me - that, no matter what, we're not alone. We want to be seen. People *do* get it. Whether they're willing to talk about it or not is a different thing - but they get it.
Experiences like those packed into the Museum of Broken Relationships help us understand that these feelings, these thoughts, these hopes are all part of the human experience. The details may change but the realities don't: we will hurt but we will endure. And, we can even live - and love - again.
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