I’ve suffered a recent heart injury, metaphorically speaking. I met someone and, like always, fell too hard too fast, and, like always, those feelings weren’t reciprocated. So, I’m crushed. And as I cycle through the stages of grief (I have six, by the way: the denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance stages, and the endlessly-tormenting-myself-with-unanswerable-questions-and-what-if-scenarios-until-I-drive-myself-mad-and-get-two-hours-of-sleep-if-I’m-lucky stage), I realize something. This is the first real heartache I’ve had without God.

I’ve always been the type to dig in, face my emotional problems head-on, and struggle to pull myself out of them. Sounds really tough and self-reliant, but I had a secret weapon. God was there to help me. He’d wrap His big, fatherly arms around me and comfort me. I could tell Him my troubles, and I knew there was a grand design that I was playing out with my pain.

But now that I’ve lost my faith, I have one more hurdle to jump when dealing with grief. I am alone. Truly alone. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I have friends and family I can lean on, and I thank God (I know, I know) for them. Inside, however, I’m alone now. I have nothing but myself to use when I need to steel myself up and rebuild my heart.

So, along with re-defining my values, beliefs, and notions about the fabric of reality, I now have to re-learn how to feel. One of my basic coping mechanisms has been removed, making something as normal and human as sadness even more crippling and insurmountable.

I sure wish I still believed. I could use a god about now.

P.S. What the hell does “we’re too similar to be more-than-friends” mean? What, we have too much in common? We get along too well? Even God was never able to help me with logic like that.