We’re All Just Brokenhearted People Looking for Love
How lunch with a very old friend gave me a new perspective on heartbreak
A couple days ago, I was giving a reading for one of my books, surrounded by strangers, when suddenly, I heard a familiar voice behind me. I turned and was delighted to find a dear friend’s father standing there.
I hadn’t seen him in a year, since he went through a messy divorce, and after the event, he asked if he could take me out to lunch to catch up and celebrate my book.
When we sat down at the restaurant, it quickly became evident that he was not in the most celebratory mood, and in fact, was in desperate need of an ear.
He opened up about his divorce, how perplexed he was that he had found himself single and alone in his early 80s.
“I thought we could have at least just kept going until the end. What did it really matter at this point?” he said.
I asked if he was taking care of himself. He admitted he wasn’t eating well — he makes dinners out of canned foods, and crackers all too often, he said, with a sad chuckle.
“She used to have dinner ready every single night at five,” he said, his eyes shifting over my shoulder, somewhere far away.
I told him it broke my heart to see him in so much pain.
“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking my wrist, as if to dispel the sad energy that had fallen over our table. “I didn’t tell you this to break your heart. I know your heart was broken not that long ago, and you don’t need any more pain. Everything is going to be okay. For both of us.”
It’s those little things we remember. The way she had dinner on the table every night at five. Or for me, the way I used to greet my partner with a drink when he walked in the door after work, if I got home before him. Falling to sleep with the comforting white noise of his breathing. Hearing my phone vibrate around eleven every morning, when he took his break, knowing there would be a sweet or sexy message waiting for me.
And when that was gone, I, like Jim, found myself feeling lost. Overwhelmed with questions (or really just one: Why?). Feeling that awful sensation that part of your body has suddenly gone missing. Trying to breathe in the suffocation of the sudden loneliness.
I sat there, across from Jim, admiring his courage so much. He leaves his empty house every day to attend support groups, social events, visit friends, and try out different churches around town.
“I know it’s probably silly for me to think I could find another partner at my age,” he said, his slightly trembling fingers curled around his glass of strawberry lemonade. “But I’d like to think it’s possible.”
I didn’t tell him that I’d just started writing about sex and relationships and love and hope, but of course, these things are at the forefront of my mind lately, so I grabbed both of his hands and said, “It is possible. I absolutely believe that there is someone out there who would love to be with you. It is never too late.”
He surprised me by saying, “I know it’s none of my business… But I think that’s true for you, too. I know you’ll find someone someday and maybe have the family that you wanted. I know you think you fell behind…that you’re too old now… But you’re not. The best is still to come.”
I had to look away. I didn’t want him to see the tears in my eyes.
Everyone has a broken heart. I knew this a long time ago, long before my ex left. Your mom criticized you, your dad was a jerk, your dog died, your best friend betrayed you, your last girlfriend cheated on you, your husband stopped paying attention to you…
Life can hurt so much. People can be so careless and sometimes even cruel.
It’s safe to assume that every person you meet is scarred in some irreversible way. Their heart has probably been stitched together again and again.
I think of this a lot when I pass people in stores or on the street. What heartache lies beneath their smile, their busyness, their shiny eyes?
When my ex left, I found myself a new job where I quickly earned a reputation as being the warmest, kindest, friendliest person in the office. I had a smile and hug for everyone who came my way.
No one had any idea that I had to run to the bathroom two or three times a day to cry. I was hemorrhaging on the inside, all the dreams I had had for my life running down between my legs in one gushing miscarriage.
But no one ever saw all that terror, grief, blood, violence, and savage loneliness beneath my kind, smiling face.
When Jim smiles, you can’t tell how much he’s hurting. When he smiles, I can see what a handsome man he is. I already knew that — I’ve seen pictures from his days as a young father, when my best friend was a little girl. He was a striking fellow, and even in his 80s, he cuts a fine figure.
There’s something so beautiful in that kind of smile. Like me, he has experienced such deep pain, but he still has hope in the inherent beauty of the world. He still believes in the basic goodness of other people.
And he, like me, miraculously still wants to try again.
He also knows how much heartbreak lies beneath the surface of every person he meets. Knowing this, he said he wanted to help other people who didn’t feel like they had anyone to talk to.
“You know, even when I go hiking in the woods, I will come upon someone my age and we’ll strike up a conversation and I’ll find out that she just got divorced, or he just lost his son. And I’ll sit there and listen to everything they have to say because they don’t have any other person in their life at that moment who will do that for them.”
He dug in his pocket and produced a little piece of cardstock, about the size of a business card. He set it on the table and slid it over to me. “I started carrying these around. I give them to everyone I meet.”
In his slightly shaking handwriting, he had written: Walk and talk with Jim. No advice. No judgment. [phone number] No cost. Just a hug.
I had to look away again, all those tears welling up in my eyes.
It occurred to me that during our lunch, I was giving Jim what he was giving to all those other people. An ear. A shoulder. No judgment. No advice. Just a hug.
I was so glad to be able to do that for him. He had been like a second dad to me during my college years. If I could alleviate his loneliness and make him feel loved for a couple of hours, that was a gift I was happy to give.
It was hard, though, to see him in that much pain — and a pain that mirrored what I had so recently been through. My stomach roiled throughout the entire meal.
As uncomfortable as it can be, this is the kind of intimacy I want to cultivate with others. In our culture, we often only value the intimacy of a sexual relationship, but we lose out on so much when we cannot open ourselves to intimacy with friends, family members, or even strangers.
I wouldn’t say that Jim and I are particularly close at this point in our lives, though the cord of our past history will probably always bind us together. But I recognized this as a chance to be intimate with someone, to open my heart to him and let him know I was a safe space — someone who could carry the weight of his pain for just a little while so he could catch his breath.
It was scary and uncomfortable at times, but these are the moments that heal our hearts and souls. These are the moments that we are given to truly connect with another person and we should never turn away from them, even when it takes us out of our comfort zones.
As we continued talking, he told me about one of his oldest friends, a man who has been taking care of his bed-ridden wife for the last ten years. Jim told me this man makes all her meals, bathes her, helps her walk from one end of a room to another, lowers her onto the toilet, brushes her teeth, puts her slippers on…
“He goes on a road trip for a week once a year while other friends take care of his wife,” Jim said. “And he tells me that it’s so hard to come back. To face another day of the endless tasks. But he loves her. So he keeps coming home.”
I knew Jim felt betrayed, or at least hurt that his wife had chosen one day to stop coming home. I knew because I felt the same way when my partner left.
We don’t always get the devotion, acceptance, and deep love that we so crave in the package we expect. A partnership isn’t always the way it comes to us. Sometimes, the generous, tender, loving caregiving we receive is just a passing moment between two old friends.
When the waiter came and dropped the check on the table, I was ready to go home. I had a lot to finish that afternoon. He asked Jim if he wanted another strawberry lemonade.
Jim’s face lit up. He turned to me and said, “Do you have time for one more?”
I realized he didn’t want to go home to his empty house, didn’t want to wrestle with the questions, or hover over the canyon of his loneliness.
I took his hand again and gave it a squeeze, settling back into the booth.
“Yes,” I said. “One more.”
Author’s note: This essay was originally published in 2019, in the publication P.S. I Love You. Their domain recently expired, and my essays have since been deleted, so I will be republishing them in my own publication.
© Y.L. Wolfe 2024
Y.L. Wolfe is a gender-curious, solosexual, perimenopausal, childless crone-in-training, exploring these experiences through writing, photography, and art. You can find more of her work at yaelwolfe.com. If you love her writing, leave her a tip over at Ko-fi.
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