The New Heartbreak: Loving the World While It Breaks

For Aili who sings our remembering

I was talking with a friend today—a channeler and songwriter—about the music she wrote in her twenties. Back then, her songs pulsed with heartbreak and longing. She was in the ache of it: new love, needing love, and the terror of endings. The kind of emotion that begs to be formed into song.

Now, seven years into a solid relationship, she told me, "I don't know what to write about anymore. Happy doesn't have the same hook as heartbreak."

And without thinking, I said: "Maybe we're in a new version of heartbreak."

Not the heartbreak of personal loss or longing, or the ache of romance unrequited or ending. But the heartbreak of loving the world—while watching it come apart at the seams.

The Beauty That Breaks You

Lately, I cry almost every day. Not from sadness. Not from grief.

For the first time in my life, I can see the world's pain without shutting down or falling completely apart. But beauty? Beauty is what undoes me.

It's the light fracturing across water like scattered diamonds. The crows defending their nests against turkey vultures. The laughter of strangers through an open window. A neighbor child's soap bubbles floating past my porch.

The simple, stubborn miracle of life continuing.

There is something unbearable about loving this world while holding the knowing of its fragility. Something exquisite about letting yourself see it all clearly—the tenderness, the horror, the slow unraveling—and choosing to stay open.

The Shift from Breakup to Breakthrough

Maybe that's why the old songs don't work anymore. They were about relationships breaking apart—and getting over someone.

But the songs we need now? They're about getting through.

Not to help us process our own pain. But to help us feel the collective pain. To hold the paradox of being alive at a time like this—and still choosing to love it all.

We don't need a hook anymore. We need something deeper. Something that speaks to the soul, not just the nervous system. The hum beneath everything that keeps us tethered to what's real.

This Is What It Means to Stay Awake

I think many of us are in this place right now. The quiet, holy ache of being awake in a world that keeps trying to shut us down.

The ache of loving deeply, witnessing clearly, and holding steady in spite of everything.

It's not collapse. It's expansion.

My capacity is increasing. My heart is stretching to hold more. My nervous system is becoming strong enough to stay open to the breaking.

It's not about breaking down—it's about breaking open.

Your tears aren't a sign that you're too sensitive. They're proof that you haven't shut down. That your heart's still beating, still receiving, still choosing to feel it all.

To the Ones Who Cry in the Presence of Beauty

To those tearing up at the way clouds move. To those undone by kindness, by resilience, by the smallest details that reveal the sacred hiding in plain sight: You are not broken.

You are remembering. You are hearing the ancient songs that want to be sung with new words.

This is the new heartbreak. And you're brave enough to stay open through it.