Jennifer Harrington Official

What was a moment in your life that broke you that you didn’t expect? I can name four moments in my 34 years of living that started defining the small moments that started breaking away pieces of my heart. My first love. It was February 1st, 2009. I was to be 18 years just 4 days after the 1st. So that would have been my birthday. My first heartbreak came at the tender age of my legal age and it destroyed me. He was the first person I could truly trust. The first person I gave my body to. The first man I loved with all my soul. Crushed to a fine powder. He cried and said “I’m sorry baby” as he did it. But I was a mere child still and very much fucked up in the head at that time but it would take me years to realize this and realize he did no wrong and he was just a child himself. It took me three years to get over him and it’s still funny how i remember that like it was yesterday even though I have already met the love of my life and the person I’d die for. Your first love and your last love are two very different loves. Your first love is a lesson on how much it can hurt and by the time you reach your last you would kill for it. My second moment was my father’s death on June 10th, 2018 I was 27 years and next of kin and in charge of what would happen before, during, and after his death. Before. During. And after. My father and I had a very bad relationship growing up and it was fought with emotional abuse and emotional neglect but he was also paralyzed from the waist down and fought his own demons that I always had to help him from. But as we both grew older we realized we were both alike and both dreamers in our own ways and he loved my inspirations of writing and cheered me on from a distance. I took his death harder than I ever could anticipate. I was also living in another state at the time of his passing and had been dating a fellow two years in at this point and from 2018 to the near end of 2020 I had essentially become numb to everything around me including my own relationship. I didn’t even realize it had fallen apart until it was over. I threw myself into my work, into yoga, into my writing, into anything where I didn’t have to exist inside my head for very long. I think those two years i stayed so busy I didn’t realize the world stopped moving. People around me shifted and then when I realized it, I was too late and it was time to pack up and leave which leaves me to moment three which wasn’t essentially a breakup but more so a breakdown that broke me. That relationship I had spoke of just a moment ago I had finally come to an end and the man I had been dating had mentally checked out in 2018 but still held on for some reason. I only know he was checked out due to some reading some texts from the past that confirmed he didn’t even want to accompany me his girlfriend of two years at that point back to our home state to deal with my passing father but would rather make me do it alone. But that’s another story for another time. By moment three came time for our break up which to which he said he didn’t know what he wanted after four years and I just pulled the plug and ended that relationship right then. What’s the point to keep going if you don’t even know what you want? What came before that what the breakdown after he told me he didn’t know what he wanted after four years. What broke me was realizing I had wasted yet another four years with someone who didn’t want to stay even though they said they loved me or said I was everything to them. They lied like everyone before them. This broke me because I was content with never getting married which he didn’t want and i understood and was ok with me but it still wasn’t enough but it would later turn out to be ok anyways but it still broke me enough into a breakdown so significant. And my fourth moment came much recently on November 7th, 2025 as we had to walk a beloved beautiful black cat Captain Jack across the rainbow bridge. I met CJ in late 2020 when I met my now husband. CJ was 15 years old at that point and only getting older but he was still spunky and happy as ever and immediately took a liking to me as I settled into the household and become a part of the family. In 2023 or 2024 we eventually had to give him home IVs for extra fluids as his kidneys were starting to fail him and his vet was surprised he had even made it this long. Time eventually ran out and it was time as a family to make a decision. We chose a home euthanasia so that CJ could be surrounded in a place he was familiar with and safe and we as a family could mourn properly. My husband and I had stayed home from work that day as the vet wasn’t coming to the house until 5pm and we sat with him and my father in law all day long and watched tv and loved on CJ and tried to comfort him. By this point he had stopped eating and had stopped moving to any place in the house so we brought the comfort to him. I sat on the floor and CJ took a big interest in my lap and I quickly grabbed a towel and placed it on my lap for both our comfort and we sat there all day. The time ticked on and our anxiety with it. Our hearts collectively broke in that hour after 5pm and CJ chose his final last breaths forever sleeping on my lap which I will hold forever in my heart. I have never cried over a car dying or have watched a cat be put to sleep but I had known the captain for 5 years and he held my heart deeply and he was so loved. We cried and loved on him as the Dr. Rebecca calmly told us at 5:56pm that his heart was no longer beating. My heart had not broken that hard since my dad died in 2018. I loved CJ with my whole heart just like the rest of my family and he still hurts my heart just talking about it now since it hasn’t even been a month. So sometimes a sadness can be a number of moments and moments that can break away pieces of your heart over time. Some can be bigger and some of smaller. Some have different meanings to why they are the moments that they are and sometimes someone might not understand that. Your sadness is unique to you and no one can tell you otherwise. It belongs to you.