heartbreak is your superpower

Artwork By: Sabahat Ahmad

I liked a boy, and it didn’t work out.

It's the most classic story, something we can all relate to. Maybe not the boy part, but I’m sure someone, somewhere, once held your affections. Left you vulnerable. Even the most powerful women aren’t exempt from it. 

It’s the way those eyes look at you, captivating your attention. The little flutter in your stomach. The excitement of getting to know someone new. Someone who understands.

It’s that deep belly laughter consuming you, uncontrollable and torturous, but your heart finally feels full. It’s the way you make unexpected eye contact and hold an entire conversation, a simple unspoken connection without a single word shared. Your eyes search for them in every room they’re in, and yearn for them in every room they’re not. You want to share every moment, no matter how small or pointless, with them. 

You feel like it was love. Maybe it was.

It’s the way panic sets in when they pull away. Your breathing shortens. Chest tightens. It’s the hot stinging tears blurring your eyes, rendering you utterly speechless. It’s the sudden loss when it’s all over, rushing like a tidal wave, overpowering each and every one of your senses. 

It’s a form of grief, but it’s strange because it’s the grief of a loss of something that is still there. 

It’s a deep guttural heart-ache, that’s what it is. 

You think when they leave, then everything will get better, back to normal, or some semblance of it. But, the thing is, the story rarely ever just ends there. 

One minute you’re laughing with your friends, and then the next, feeling absolutely confused as the ache is still there, haunting you. 

The heart is lonely during its pursuit for love. But, when it completely surrenders to love, what happens to the heart when it gets stabbed instead of fought for?  

We were taught love would cure it all. It’s everywhere: in books, in TikTok, celebrity gossip, and even national holidays are curated to celebrate love. We've watched enough Disney movies to know the formula: Love is everything. Love saves you. Love wins. 

But, what about when it doesn’t?

We’re told that the heartbreak after is something you will never recover from. The pain of heartbreak is one thing, but the experience of a failed love feels like failing as a woman. 

Think about it. Why is love the saviour, and heartbreak the curse? Why are women, especially, conditioned to sacrifice everything, specifically themselves, just to make it work? 

Contrary to popular belief, sometimes, you simply like a guy and it just doesn’t work out. You keep going. You keep moving. 

Most of the time, the heartbreak is when the best stories begin. 

Like the journey of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. Dumped and determined, she ends up finding herself, and going to Harvard, all thanks to being heartbroken. Or, what about the infamous Harley Quinn? Processing her break-up with the Joker, she finds herself and builds deep bonds with the women around her. 

The heart was never wrong for loving. 

But, the end of one love story isn’t the end of you. They were never your story to begin with. You are. 

And just because you feel heartbreak doesn’t mean it’s a curse that only love can lift. That’s the fairytale nonsense we were sold as kids. Love doesn’t always have to be the saviour.

Sometimes, the heartbreak is the saviour.

Heartbreak is a second chance. While women are expected to shrink down and shrivel up, it’s the time to turn your pain into power. You needed to go through what you did. You needed to walk away from that situation to become the version of yourself you were always meant to be.

To grow. To learn. To rise. 

To be the best version of you. 

It’s the moment where you choose yourself. Where you reinvent who you are.

Where you realize you don’t need to be saved, you just needed space to become.

So many women have done it. I think of Beyonce after Jay-z cheating, or Rihanna after Chris Brown, or Kim Kardashian after Kanye. Hell, Taylor Swift built a whole legacy off being broken-hearted. These women didn’t just survive, but thrived, and not in spite of heartbreak, but because of it.

So, it’s time to reclaim heartbreak.

It’s not shameful. It’s not weakness. It’s not the end.

You will love again. Deeply, wildly, wholeheartedly. And sometimes even then it won’t work out. But, don’t believe the lie that you won’t recover or the pain will break you. Most of the time, that pain will actually make you. 

Make you stronger, unrecognizable, and more powerful than ever. 

In that way, heartbreak isn’t a curse. It’s a superpower.

xoxo, 

Khushi Kumari