i’ve been deep down in the depths of a funk. i keep trying to pull myself out and somehow keep falling back in. at first, i tried to blame the weather, but it’s more than that…it’s heartbreak.

not over a boy (though i have had my fair share of those), i miss my dad. friends tell me my feelings are normal and it’s natural to feel this way, but i can’t help but feel guilty for being so sad recently. i know that loss is an inevitable part of the human experience and i am SO fortunate and grateful for everything i do have. which led me to thinking…about heartbreak in general. and my experiences with it.

supposedly, every woman wants a bad boy*, and i’ve certainly had my share. there was the dark haired blue eyed screw up in hawaii, the boy with tattoos instead of morals, the alcoholic who i watched deteriorate before my eyes, the chef who fought instead of cried, and the kid who womanized and then moved across the country.

i finally quit bad boys cold turkey after jb, the unemployed alcoholic with a great sense of humor and dreams of owning a bar. a few years ago, the two of us enjoyed a hilariously tumultuous time together, rehashing the in-and-outs of his suckjob career and pondering why life, mostly his, was little more than an enormous pile of elephant droppings. instead of a girlfriend, i became a backbone, a shrink, a cheerleader, a roommate. what really ended things was my dad’s diagnosis with cancer and the realization that i was wasting my time with someone with whom i couldn’t envision a future.

truthfully, i was a bit sorry to see him go. he drank. he bellyached. he spiraled downward. he left town.

and later, in the days after he moved, i would get calls from jb. since our split, he’d thought a lot about me. of course, i should ignore his calls…but he sounded so sincere that it left me wondering why bad was so hard to shake.

is it because we believe we can save these guys? or is that we’re still a bunch of cave women pining away for the beefy and strong? we want men who can defend us when necessary against spiders and catcalls and this mean ol’ grizzly bear called life. but we also want someone who isn’t afraid to burrow down deep into the dirty muck of his own soul, to bring up the pain there and share it with that one special gal. in relationships, women want to feel together, to suffer and prevail as one. shared feelings equal intimacy. if there’s anything bad boys seem to offer, it’s a well of steamy emotion.

and intensity. good guys may challenge our minds, but bad boys test our mettle. a significantly more erotic interplay.

but there’s a fly in the ointment. these boys rarely heal. they just keep fighting, getting tattoos, puking up the bile of their own internal suffering and dribbling it into the lives of their worn-out girlfriends. bad boys don’t care about a woman’s personal crap because they’re too busy continually stepping in their own.

a man who deals with his issues is hot. a man who’s conscious of other people’s feelings is positively breath-taking. and a man who transcends the pain of his own life story? give this dude a medal.

i stood at that defining moment where i could either move toward emotional redemption and romantic health, or get sucked back into bad boy-ism and a life of needless distress. and then, i deleted his messages.

so, as i struggle to pull myself out of this deep well of sadness i remind myself that happiness is a choice…and although i can’t help but miss my dad – i can choose to remember him with a smile. and if the occasional tear slips its way out, then i choose to not feel badly about it. i just need a little time until the sad fades into the background.

*situations have been condensed & altered for anonymity’s sake