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| Tara Jill's Broken Heart |
If anyone ever asks me about my passion for Jon Bon Jovi, I will honestly answer that it is because I remain perpetually heart-broken, and Bon Jovi songs were the first songs that ever consoled me. I metabolize pain into art, and the shrine exists as evidence.
I do not want to be perpetually heart-broken. Having one's heart broken is not glamorous. Trust me, I would know. When I first had my heart broken, it was 1992 and I listened to Bon Jovi. Years later, songs like "Bad Medicine" and "Bed of Roses" still comfort me. "Lay Your Hands on Me" brings me to tears.
For some reason, I have always suffered from these broken hearts in the spring, and in NOLA, spring is Jazz Fest.
I have suffered a total of 9 heart breaks (not counting the occasional sprains) in my 35 years.
I've been hinting around about this horrible broken heart that is somehow connected to the Sacred Shrine of Jon Bon Jovi, and it is true that my heart is currently shredded.
This is not the first heart-shredding that has occurred at the Sacred Shrine on Maurepas Street. In 2009, the man I was dating (the one who looked like Jon Bon Jovi) broke my heart. I refused to admit this to anyone because I was so embarrassed about it. The 2009 guy broke my heart the way the world breaks my heart; I later learned that he had read my emails and pretended to have a lot of things in common with me when he, in fact, had little in common with me at all. It still hurt though. It was more like I loved an Avatar, but I still remembered kissing him in the rain at Jazz Fest as the happiest moment of my life. That is one of the problems with the happiest moments of one's life. One usually does not know it is the happiest moment of her life until the moment is over. In fact, not knowing that it is the happiest moment of one's life while it is happening is a pre-requisite for such a moment.
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| The happiest moment of my life. |
This tortured me terribly until Jazz Fest 2010, when I got involved with another man and admitted that my heart had been broken the year before. I did not fall in love In 2010, I started healing the broken heart from 2009. That was the year that the Shrine was in NOLA sans Bon Jovi.
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| Sacred Shrine 2010 |
Astonishingly, in February of 2011, I met someone new and again began to feel like I was falling in love.
I guess I was swept off my feet from the start, but it's pretty easy to get my attention when saving my laptop from a torrential downpour is involved. But I felt something when I was around this guy that I have not felt in a long long time. It wasn't that "crush" feeling. It was a much stronger connection, but then he pulled away.
I made this video while he was pulling away.
I asked him why on April 17 when I saw him at the coffee shop. I don't think I've had a conversation like that in public since high school.
He said he realized he was not "romantically available" because he cannot stop being in love with someone from the past. He would not go into detail, but said he still wanted to hang out with me a lot. He said we could do all these fun things. I told him I was not sure how we would hang out if I wanted to kiss him. He said he did not think we should kiss. I told him that was a problem for me. He hugged me for a long time and I got mascara all over his jacket.
It was hard for me to think about that connection I'd felt with him as being one-sided. Or maybe he had felt something then but it went away? That happens sometimes. Don't ask me why.
I am not being crazy and giddy and misguided. I fucking know what it feels like to meet a soul mate. And all that time I thought my soul mate was dead.
I thought I would just throw myself into my shrine until enough time had passed that I would feel less raw.
But then he called on the day of Jon Bon Jovi's performance.
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| Bon Jovi 2011 Jazz Fest |
We have talked on the phone several times since then, and I saw him today and gave him the longer version of the letter below. I have decided to publish some of this letter on the world wide web, which is surely a horrible mistake.
My Dearest Boy,
You can decide how strong you think I am after you have known me for much longer, if you get to know me much longer. I am a lot stronger than people think I am. Realizing that I am strong seems to happen slowly for people, but maybe you will believe me that I am strong. It seems like you think I am not and that it is a problem for you. But that's how it is. I'm like Lupe that way, little and fierce when it really matters.
I am not sure how that will happen that you will get to know me enough to trust that I am stronger than you think though because I think I will have to go away forever now. I do not think I can live in this city anymore. There are only so many times I can get my heart broken in New Orleans, and I think there is a finite amount of times that I can fall in love with someone. I think I am in the red.
You could not have known. It is not your fault that you flirted with me and then I felt more of a personal connection to you than you felt to me. You did not know me and you had no way of knowing that I don't hang out with guys casually, that I don't spend time with guys unless I think I could fall in love with them. Or maybe you did and didn't care, which makes you a jerk.
I know we do not know each other well enough for me to claim to be in love with you and that you could easily think I am shallow and don't know what love is. That is not the case. I just know that I have never met anyone like you before, and that I feel a connection to you and think you are brilliant and fragile and strong all at the same time.
I am not sure how that will happen that you will get to know me enough to trust that I am stronger than you think though because I think I will have to go away forever now. I do not think I can live in this city anymore. There are only so many times I can get my heart broken in New Orleans, and I think there is a finite amount of times that I can fall in love with someone. I think I am in the red.
You could not have known. It is not your fault that you flirted with me and then I felt more of a personal connection to you than you felt to me. You did not know me and you had no way of knowing that I don't hang out with guys casually, that I don't spend time with guys unless I think I could fall in love with them. Or maybe you did and didn't care, which makes you a jerk.
I know we do not know each other well enough for me to claim to be in love with you and that you could easily think I am shallow and don't know what love is. That is not the case. I just know that I have never met anyone like you before, and that I feel a connection to you and think you are brilliant and fragile and strong all at the same time.
I cannot sleep because I wonder about you and why you cannot be interested in me. I cannot sleep almost ever. I distract myself with the Bon Jovi shrine until I realize I am so exhausted from the Bon Jovi shrine that I can't even move.
I write you a letter that you may never read but that I want you to read because your palm is like my palm with a head line that does not ever connect to the life line, and few people's palms are like that.
I think I would be a good girlfriend for you. If you don't want to be my boyfriend it is either because a) you want to have many lovers or b) you don't think you could ever be in love with me or c) you are in some place in your life that requires that you not be with anyone.
But I will tell you that I think you are wrong, and I think you could be happy with me. I don't know if you are afraid of that deep down inside, if you are just afraid of a relationship and what comes with it, but I think it would be better if you wanted to be with me the way I want to be with you.
You say that you'll see me and give me a nice hug, and I want to feel that hug. I also know it would hurt more after when you weren't there. I am not one of those people who can just live in the moment appreciating hugs and then not missing the person who hugged me when he is gone. So you will always be gone.
I already said it was not your fault, but I am a little mad that you called me and texted me so many times from Texas. I did not initiate the calling.
You say that you'll see me and give me a nice hug, and I want to feel that hug. I also know it would hurt more after when you weren't there. I am not one of those people who can just live in the moment appreciating hugs and then not missing the person who hugged me when he is gone. So you will always be gone.
I already said it was not your fault, but I am a little mad that you called me and texted me so many times from Texas. I did not initiate the calling.
I had every reason to believe that you were interested, so I did not protect myself enough. I am not so much blaming you for anything as I am mad at myself and at the way life is, a the way it seems like there are women in this world who men call casually, on the telephone, and these women talk on the telephone and get close to men and do not get their hearts broken. These women who go around talking on the telephone without getting their hearts broken could be setting a status quo that men think is the norm, or is what happens the majority of the time, and meanwhile my heart gets shredded from those same telephone calls.
It amazes me that I still have enough of a heart that I can give it away to be shredded at all. For all time times that my heart has been broken, it can still break all over again, just to remind me that it is still there. I have cried for however many weeks it has been since you told me that you were romantically unavailable, and I cried for a few days before that too.
It amazes me that I still have enough of a heart that I can give it away to be shredded at all. For all time times that my heart has been broken, it can still break all over again, just to remind me that it is still there. I have cried for however many weeks it has been since you told me that you were romantically unavailable, and I cried for a few days before that too.
I think I will have to leave this city now. There gets to be a point where every block in this city holds the ghost of someone who broke my heart, or the ghost of me without a broken heart. There are no places that don't remind me of times when I thought I would be with someone I loved or knew that I would not be.
Maybe I will see Corey Henry play ‘Little Liza Jane’ on the street and everything will feel okay. I have not seen Corey Henry in a long time, and his trombone used to make me feel better. I would like to live somewhere and go somewhere with no landmarks and no sidewalks stained with my own tears. Certainly there is a city somewhere, maybe out in the desert, that will be new enough that I will cry less.
I do not want to live in this neighborhood anymore, and I do not know where I can go in this city. I am familiar with the philosophy that change and strength come from within, but that is not the case with these broken hearts. I never thought I would want to leave New Orleans, but I think you were the last person I had the energy to fall for here. It has the weight of all of my disappointments and sorrows attached. I trusted you because I really did not think you were nefarious, so I believed you when you said you would take me and Lupe to Texas on a motorcycle. I did not think you were saying that to all the girls. I did not think you were a player.
Part if me wants to tell you that it would be better if we never talked, that it would be better for me if we never saw one another again, so I could forget. I am not sure if you are aware of how hurt I am. If you knew, if you really knew how hurt I am and that I cry after talking on the phone with you and that I cry when I think about you and that I cry when I look at the painting in the coffee shop, if you knew that I cannot sleep and am making horrible decisions on a daily basis because I am unable to sleep because I can't stop thinking about you, if you knew all of this, would you leave me alone?
I think you are a good enough person that you would leave me alone if you knew it makes me this sad to think about you. I would have to move somewhere else so I would never run into you. You would have to not come to my house or call while I was getting ready to move. Or you could come over and spend time with me before I moved and then I would move away and still be heart broken but at least we would have spent time together so I would have gotten some decent sleep before moving. I would take care of you if you needed kindness. But then I would move so you would not be able to break my heart because you are not able to fall in love with me.
The thing is, I want to talk to you, and I don't want to you to leave me alone because I secretly think that you will realize we would be happy together and you would realize that you could fall in love with me. I realize that writing this letter (if you are reading it) may make any potential for you to fall in love with me evaporate.
It makes me the saddest when you say things that imply that you have that effect on people, as if you are just so damn charismatic that this happens to every women you meet, as if these really are not my feelings but some symptom of a spell you cast on people. I mean, I know that a lot of guys have crushes on me after talking with me for a few hours, but I have more than a crush on you. I wish you could at least believe that I am different than other girls who have crushes on you. Can you at least give me that much respect? It would help.
I wish you could advise me about this situation. Not the kind of advice about things like how I can be happy and have some full life and not cry all the time, but I wish you would advise me about why you are romantically unavailable and if that will change and if it will ever change in a way that will include me. I do not feel like you have really explained this to me. Do you just not know? Or if you do know, will you please tell me the long version, in paragraphs? I think if I can understand why you pulled away, perhaps I will eventually experience some type of peace.
With love and squalor,
TJC
Part if me wants to tell you that it would be better if we never talked, that it would be better for me if we never saw one another again, so I could forget. I am not sure if you are aware of how hurt I am. If you knew, if you really knew how hurt I am and that I cry after talking on the phone with you and that I cry when I think about you and that I cry when I look at the painting in the coffee shop, if you knew that I cannot sleep and am making horrible decisions on a daily basis because I am unable to sleep because I can't stop thinking about you, if you knew all of this, would you leave me alone?
I think you are a good enough person that you would leave me alone if you knew it makes me this sad to think about you. I would have to move somewhere else so I would never run into you. You would have to not come to my house or call while I was getting ready to move. Or you could come over and spend time with me before I moved and then I would move away and still be heart broken but at least we would have spent time together so I would have gotten some decent sleep before moving. I would take care of you if you needed kindness. But then I would move so you would not be able to break my heart because you are not able to fall in love with me.
The thing is, I want to talk to you, and I don't want to you to leave me alone because I secretly think that you will realize we would be happy together and you would realize that you could fall in love with me. I realize that writing this letter (if you are reading it) may make any potential for you to fall in love with me evaporate.
It makes me the saddest when you say things that imply that you have that effect on people, as if you are just so damn charismatic that this happens to every women you meet, as if these really are not my feelings but some symptom of a spell you cast on people. I mean, I know that a lot of guys have crushes on me after talking with me for a few hours, but I have more than a crush on you. I wish you could at least believe that I am different than other girls who have crushes on you. Can you at least give me that much respect? It would help.
I wish you could advise me about this situation. Not the kind of advice about things like how I can be happy and have some full life and not cry all the time, but I wish you would advise me about why you are romantically unavailable and if that will change and if it will ever change in a way that will include me. I do not feel like you have really explained this to me. Do you just not know? Or if you do know, will you please tell me the long version, in paragraphs? I think if I can understand why you pulled away, perhaps I will eventually experience some type of peace.
With love and squalor,
TJC
