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Reconciling a Season of Heartbreak with a Season of Gratitude

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Grief is proof of love—so is gratitude

By Reema Zaman

I thought he was the one.

We seemed meant for each other. An author (me) and a photographer (him). Common interests and values, we even dressed alike, appearing as though we had just stepped off the cover of a magazine. Members from both our families referred to us as Barbie and Ken. We were often told, “You look perfect together.” As though physical appearances have anything to do with the quality or longevity of a match.

We met when I was 37 and he was 41, a single dad of one daughter. From the start, we were clear that we were dating with the intention of marriage and children.

“How many?” he asked.

“A slew. You?”

“A slew. I come from a big family.”

Those were the expectations with which we entered our first date and built our relationship. For two and a half years, I helped him and his ex-wife co-parent their beautiful daughter. They all referred to me as her “bonus mama.” Everything had felt harmonious. Until it didn’t.

Shortly after our second anniversary, he shared that he had changed his mind about having more children. When he made this announcement, it was the final blow in a long line of wounds incurred over the years that we never managed to repair. For me, having children has always been non-negotiable. That is an actual sentence from my memoir, which he read before our first date.

I had just turned 39 when he dropped the bomb about not having kids; I felt the full weight of my age for what seemed like the first time while listening to him speak. Time operates differently for women than it does for men, biologically and culturally. Every month—every week—I remained patient, supporting him as he raised his daughter after navigating a divorce. I gave my devotion willingly, despite knowing that the longer we waited, the more difficult it would be for me to get pregnant. I behaved the way any loyal and mature partner would. Until we reached an impasse, and decisions had to be made.

During our last conversation, I tried to explain how different this separation would be for me than for him. I gave him the final years of my 30s because we had a shared vision—but that illusion had shattered. Those are years I will never regain. Those are years my body will never regain. Those are years I could have invested in someone else. He has all he needs and wants. While so much of what I want—a husband, children, a home—still eludes me.

“Time moves differently for women than it does for men.”

In characteristic fashion, he looked at me for a few seconds, then chose to say nothing.

We separated about six months ago, which happened to be six months before my 40th birthday. But leading up to that, I began writing a novel inspired by the relationship, called Woman in Flight.

In the novel, my 39-year-old protagonist is faced with a conflict identical to mine, to stay with a man she loves or leave him in pursuit of a life she can only have by letting him go. As my protagonist gained the courage to leave behind a limiting relationship, and choose herself, I found the courage to do the same. When I began writing last December, separating from my partner felt impossible. By the time I completed the first draft, we had. And I held in my hands a manuscript about a woman healing, piecing herself together after a brutal separation—the exact blueprint I needed.

Have you ever separated from a person you thought would be your life partner? The grief is unlike anything I had ever felt before. You grieve not only the person you have lost but also the dream of the life you could have shared. You grieve the loss of your shared memories, anecdotes, traditions, challenges, wins, and private jokes. You grieve the pet names you had for each other. You grieve the sacrifices and compromises you endured for the sake of the relationship. You grieve the imagined family that will never be.

I have been through breakups, but this separation burrowed deeper. Not only because I loved him more than any man who came before him, and believed we would see each other through the end of our lives, but also because of the timing. The loss of the relationship feeds into a larger, encompassing grief that I didn’t anticipate—grief for the life I thought I would have by now. Marriage, kids, a home.

Yet at the same time, I have so much to be grateful for, and so much of that exists in direct relation to what I don’t yet have. Namely, my career as a writer, the niche of writing I inhabit. All my books and essays are a result of failed relationships and traumas that I turned into art. My grief and my gratitude are interwoven—parallel strands in a DNA helix.

If you had told me 20 years ago that, by age 40, I would still be single and without children, I would have been devastated.

At the same time, if you’d said that I’d be a published author and essayist, I would have been shocked.

Would I trade one life for another? My lived experience for the unlived dream? It is an impossible question and rather futile to explore. What I do know is that I, like you, harbor a deep instinct for rebirth as a matter of survival. Every heartbreak I have endured has been transformed into something useful and perhaps even beautiful, because the alternative is to fall apart.

Have you ever separated from a person you thought would be your life partner? The grief is unlike anything I had ever felt before.

Over the last six months, I’ve regrouped and created a new plan for my future, and I’ve been supported by my extraordinary family and friends along the way. As I worked on my novel, I had countless conversations with women—family members, friends, colleagues, clients, and students—for whom grief exists alongside gratitude. While our lives may look different on paper, we all have to navigate this duality—especially as women, or any minority group—and it grows more acute as we age.

I’ve spoken with women who appear to have the perfect life with a loving partner and beautiful children, and yet they are mourning the loss of a relationship with their own mother or father. Whether it is a loss by death, bitter resignation, or irreconcilable differences, they are grieving the bond or the years they hoped to have. There are women who, like me, have immense gratitude for their careers, but simultaneously long for a partner and children. There are the single mamas, who have one of the hardest workloads of us all. Then there are the women who have been dealt unthinkable trauma—loss of a loved one, abuse, displacement, illness, assault—and yet they’ve muscled through, buoyed by the gratitude in their lives.

With every passing year, I learn how little I can control in my life. I cannot control whether I will ever find the partner I have sought for decades. But I can write and transform my pain into something meaningful and true. I can control my daily output as a member of my community, as a writing teacher who helps other women find their voices and turn their traumas into art they are proud of. These concentric circles of support and influence are all we have. And what we have in common is a mutual responsibility to use our influence well, to play our part with kindness and integrity, to help offset and heal what ails us and our neighbors, down the street and across the globe.

Today is my 40th birthday, and, in a few days, it will be Thanksgiving. A favorite holiday that also comes with a fraught origin story. During these uncertain times, I am not alone in asking, How do I reconcile a season of heartbreak with a season of gratitude? The answer is paradoxical: by embracing both. Grief is proof of love. So is gratitude. When we repress or fight our grief, it becomes harder to feel gratitude because both arise from vulnerability.

At this precise moment, someone is falling in love while someone else’s heart is breaking. I can love a man while knowing that chapter has ended. I can honor one culture, race, and religion, while simultaneously honoring another. Our capacity to foster this nuance of duality not only makes us human but humane.

As a result of my separation, I am in the process of moving from Portland to Los Angeles, where a new life awaits. I am inspired by this urgent and reflective season. In one hand, I hold grief. In the other, gratitude. Between them is the body that carries it all.

I am turning it into something beautiful.


Reema Zaman is an author, essayist, speaker, teacher, and book coach. She is the author of the acclaimed memoir I Am Yours (Amberjack, 2019) and the forthcoming novel Woman in Flight. Her essays have been published in Vogue, The Guardian, Salon, Zibby Mag, and several others. She is currently between addresses but wherever she may be, she is accompanied by her rescue chihuahua, Fia the Fierce. Read more of her writing at reemazaman.com.