"Silently dying as the pain and the misery wash over the pieces of my broken heart"

Breakups. Breakups are one of the most common sources of angst, depression and self-loathing in the universe. The heartiest and most cheerful of men have been known to turn into raving suicidal maniacs after a breakup. Women shed tears of anger, then tears of sorrow, then tears of self-pity, followed by more tears of sorrow once she sees her credit card bill from her "drown-my-sorrows-in-a-shoe-store" shopping spree. Breakups suck.

My first breakup occured at the tender age of 14, though I admit it wasn't much of a relationship per say. We met during a 4 day youth camp. Day 1 was a talent show. I got up on stage and sang; she got off her seat and fell in love apparently. The next days were filled with weird teenage flirting, and we parted ways, her with my phone number and me with a somewhat confused look on my face. Soon the parents figured something was up when I started receiving calls from some new friend in Colombo. Naturally, the mother told me to end it, and the next time she called I did. Unfortunately, she had just broken up with her boyfriend, and was calling me to tell me the good news (now all I had to do was 'elope' to Colombo apparently!). There was screaming and crying and then the harsh slam of the phone.

It was the first breakup, and so I remember it with special 'fondness'. But that isn't the reason for this post.

I've been through some rough times in my life; a couple of messy breakups, the occasional bout of depression, the whole 'identity crisis' phase - basically the usual crap that normal people go through in their lives. Yes, life sucks, its works you over, it breaks you, yada yada yada.

What I've noticed especially over that last couple of weeks is that much of the blogosphere is filled with excruciatingly detailed accounts of people's misery. I mean, hardcore 'this-is-what-I-felt-first-and-then-I-felt-this-and-then-I-took-a-deep-breath-and....' type accounts. It makes for painful reading to the unbiased reader, and I can only imagine how traumatising it must be for the author to read his/her post once it's published! Most of these posts spawn from some heart-wrenching and ball-crushing break-up, and honestly after a while you run out of sympathy. Then there are those that come out with extremely artistic prose and/or reflections when faced with difficulties in their lives.

Now this is my problem - why is that we only expose our inner artist when we're faced with a brick wall in our lives? Let's face it, if you can write great prose when you're depressed, you can do the same when you're not, surely! Yet it's almost impossible (almost) to find someone writing a blog post about a GOOD day, or expressing joy or optimism through song!

People that can write songs or poetry are gifted individuals, and I have loads of respect for them. I just wish that they would choose to use their gifts both ways instead of feeding the blogosphere with more stories of heartbreak, betrayal and psycho babble. Make no mistake, I don't expect people to put on a happy face all the time, but at least ONCE in a while, it couldnt't hurt to try and say 'hey, the world hasn't tried to kill me today, my girlfriend still loves me, I just got a raise, my friends are cool, slashing my wrists may not be such a good idea, and my parents aren't the worst people in the world'.

This may seem rather heartless on my part, but I assure you it's not. Contrary to popular belief, the 'dark one' HAS a heart. But I also have a brain, and a generally sunny disposition; besides, I'm not exactly vying for a job on the 'suicide hotline'. I just wish all the great writers out there would lighten up a bit.