This piece is nearly a decade old. I wrote it during one of the hardest emotional seasons of my life. I’m sharing it now, not because the pain still feels fresh, but because the lessons still matter. Lightning, heartbreak, fear, and growth, they all strike, but they also pass. This is what it felt like to survive the storm.
Lightning is as unpredictable as heartbreak.
Unlike thunder, you never know when lightning is going to strike. Between thunder and lightning, you have about five seconds to prepare yourself for the rumble ahead. Lightning travels much faster than thunder—at 186,000 miles per second, while thunder lags behind at just over 1,000. It’s always a little behind, never quite catching up. And like lightning, heartbreak gives no warning. It just strikes, whenever and wherever it wants.
The experience felt like needles being shoved into my chest, like my heart was being pierced from the inside out. Lightning reminds me of heartbreak in the way it makes me feel. When I see it, my stomach turns, my knees buckle, and my mind races. As a human being, I’m often introduced—willingly or not—to emotions I can’t explain. I wouldn’t call heartbreak a fear, exactly. But when I see lightning now, it feels eerily similar.
Once, I ran back to my apartment while my girlfriend searched for my student ID that had fallen from my pocket while we were cruising IU’s campus on longboards. A storm was building in the distance. I was terrified. I hated lightning, and I couldn’t fathom going back out. But she took off after it anyway while I waited in the lobby of our campus apartment, pacing. I worried she’d get struck by lightning. I worried she’d fall. I worried I’d never see her again.
When a bolt of lightning travels from a cloud to the ground, it opens a hole in the air called a channel. The light collapses, and that collapse creates the sound of thunder.
I never expected to fall in love when I did.
Love struck me quickly.
And when it left, it opened a hole in my heart.
Heartbreak is a part of life, just like lightning is a part of nature. You know that moment where you stand at the edge of your porch, contemplating running out into the rain to roll up your car windows? That pause, that hesitation? I wish heartbreak gave you that moment. I wish there was time to prepare. I would’ve run. I would’ve run so fast. But I didn’t. I stood there. I got drenched. I drowned in it. Five seconds could have saved me a lot of pain.
I think back to the last time I saw her—the day she left me. The day my life changed.
We were in our 2009 Chevy HHR. She was driving me to class. As we approached the four-way stop outside Student Central, she said, “See you after class. I love you.” I got out, rushing across the street because I was running late. I didn’t even kiss her goodbye.
Within five seconds, she turned the corner.
I had no idea I wouldn’t see her after class.
Decisions are made quickly—sometimes with thought, sometimes without.
I was sitting in Italian when my texts stopped going through. I knew something was wrong. I had a gut feeling.
Today is the day, I remember thinking as I walked out of Ballentine and toward home.
But home looked different now.
It had been almost a year since the ID went missing.
I called my mom as I walked over the train tracks, just minutes from our lot. A flood of butterflies hit my stomach. I knew. When I reached Terra Trace, I saw the HHR parked outside. She wasn’t supposed to be home. My heart dropped.
I opened the door to our apartment on February 24, 2016. That was when the first needle plunged into my heart.
The second?
When I found the Dear John letter on the bed—next to my sleeping kitten, Chester.
Months passed. Everyone told me the same thing:
Time heals all wounds.
This too shall pass.
I wanted those two sentences to be true.
But they weren’t.
Not yet.
I spiraled into a black hole.
I wanted to give up on school, family, friends, on everything. I woke up every day with regret. I wondered about all the what-ifs… if there would ever be a maybe again.
Those first few months were the hardest of my life.
I remember the night I tried to walk home from a house party. It was nearly 3 a.m. A storm was rolling in. I was belligerently drunk. I left my friend and wandered alone through downtown Bloomington. I don’t remember the exact thoughts going through my head, but I know I never made it home that night.
I woke up in the ER.
They told me I had been found laid out in a parking garage—covered in vomit, barely breathing. It was freezing out. A stranger must have called 911, but they were gone when the medics arrived. I was so far gone—from life, from myself.
That night I was in a dark place. My grades were failing. My hope was gone. But somewhere deep inside, I still believed, my light was on its way. I just didn’t know when.
I don’t see heartbreak anymore when I see lightning. The fear is still there, sure—but not the same way. Life is full of lessons, and each day teaches new ones, good and bad.
The five seconds between lightning and thunder taught me that no matter how quickly things change, there’s always a moment, a split second, when you can choose. Shift. Stay. Go.
Someone once told me:
“A lot of positive things can happen in five seconds.
Storms wash away the pain so the sun can shine again.
Lightning is scary—but living in fear is scarier.”
I’ll never run for five seconds again.
Not even in a storm.
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