Katelyn Hawthorne//For The Miami Student
I watched Titanic the other day-Leonardo DiCaprio was cuter than ever, but that is besides the point-and it truly is an all-time classic love story. Boy meets girl (we're going to forget that she's engaged for the sake of this article). Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl make plans for future and then, what do ya know, the boat sinks.
Then what do you do?
Recently, the ill-fated Titanic has become an all too fitting metaphor for my love life-supposedly indestructible, but ultimately doomed.
My boat began taking in water two months before it finally sank at approximately 1 a.m. Monday, Oct. 8-I curse my good memory on occasions like this-ending an amazing, but tumultuous three-year long-distance relationship.
Now, I'm stranded in the middle of nowhere, seemingly clueless about what to do. I didn't have any lifeboats, or any backup plans because I didn't need any.
We were unsinkable.
We had made plans for the future-most of which involved me leaving everything and everyone I knew-and for me, that was OK because it was an adventure, a new life with him.
Now that I'm planning for my own, single future, it is a shame that all those plans went down in water all because of a not-so-little iceberg-in our case, distance.
When I met my Jack, I was-like Rose-dating someone else at the time. Regardless of how cliché it is, I couldn't help but fall for his adorable shyness and his passion for music and movies and everything in between.
He was living in Michigan at the time and I was still a na've 16-year old-girl, falling hopelessly in love for the first (and only) time.
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It's been four years, but I can still see the lake in the horizon and feel the rocks where we sat on our first date.
I can still remember the small canoe in the distance that rowed past when we talked about what was to come.
The decisions we made during our relationship were never easy-some of them were the farthest thing from easy-but we made sacrifices and compromises for one another.
Through late night phone calls and text messages, we kept our love alive, which amazed a lot of people. It amazed us.
My ex and I went months, sometimes even a year without seeing each other. But unlike some relationships, that distance made our relationship stronger. (You know the saying; "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and, boy, was I fond of him.)
We made each day together count and really appreciated that little time we had, which made those already depressing goodbyes borderline heartbreaking. When it came time for either one of us to leave, we didn't want to let go.
And now, that's my predicament.
One of the most classic scenes in Titanic is Rose's "I'll never let go" (emotionally) speech before physically letting go of Jack.
Most girls-like our beloved Rose-would have let go of her lover's frozen hand and swam to a lifeboat.
I, on the other hand, have been floating around in freezing water with my now ex-lover still attached to me by the arm.
For the past month, I've been waiting. Waiting for him to come back. Waiting for my world to rebuild itself. Waiting for a resolution.
But there's been no answer.
This brings me to heartbreaking, but sometimes necessary questions.
What do you do when you've planned your future around someone who isn't there anymore?
How do you tell your mind to stop thinking something your heart still feels? When is it time to let go? And when it is that time, how do you do it?
Everyone will have their very own Titanic to ponder about, when they have to decide whether to sink with their ship or swim toward the unknown future.
With much time alone to ponder about my fate, I've come to a conclusion that I'm finally ready for (even if my heart isn't).
Just because my Jack isn't there anymore, doesn't mean my heart shouldn't go on.
Maybe it's time I learn how to swim. Maybe it's time to save myself.
I think I'm done being cold. I'm ready to de-frost this not-so-old heart of mine.
It's true. Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime, as the great Celine Dion said.
Just because I'm physically letting go of the past doesn't mean I have to forget how special it was.
The love that I felt will stay forever that way, kept safe in my heart.
I'm not quite ready for the singles lifeboat yet, but I'm open to the possibilities.
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