Heartbreaking

My friend, Tall Michael, always counseled to let a person have his tragedies, no matter how small or tenuous. I'm thinking about whether the same applies to heartbreak.

My stroll tonight through Trader Joes, that tragic shopping platform, helped me select a few of my food-based heartbreaks. I bet Proust would have wept when he saw their nicely packaged madelines. But listing my own private idahos -food or non-food- now seems to me to be going too far. Plus, the list by itself teeters on parody.

For instance: feathers. For god's sake, why feathers? That's nuts if I do say so myself. But I know why. Lancome? Did someone in my family get hit by a Lancome truck? Nice smelling industrial accident? I know why. No, not the preferred grooming products of an ex. Stop guessing.

I apologize for being a tease. But I also am impelled to talk about this here, no matter how abortive the attempt. I don't think that my reluctance to reveal is due to shyness, discretion, fear or kindness. Self-aggrandizement? I don't think so. Curiosity about what others endure? Maybe. But how would I feel once I found out that I had 37% more heartbreak than the average person but that they had 63% more tragedy that I do?

Those numbers are not real. I made them up. I repeat: I make things up.