Conversation with My Heart - Part I
“Am I breaking?” She whispered, her voice fearful with a twinge of curiosity. “Is this how it feels?”
“No.” I said calmly. “You are not breaking. It is impossible for you to break, for you are a muscle.”
“But that’s what they call this.
Heartbreak.
Don’t tell me it’s not true.”
“Yes, that is what they call it. But it’s hyperbole. An overly dramatized account. You are familiar with that, of course, because you are connected to me. You know I love to be hyperbolic.”
“If I’m not breaking. Then what is happening to me? Why do I feel like this?
What is this sadness? This longing? This fear?”
“You are not breaking.” I reply. “You are bending. I left you open, vulnerable and exposed. And someone snuck in there, made themselves a little room, and then left you alone again.
Well, not really alone. You are with me, so you are never truly alone.
“Well, let’s not do this again, ok?” She stated, resolutely. “This doesn’t feel right.”
“I will not promise that. In fact, the opposite. I need to keep you open now.”
“Then how about I get stronger? We can go to the gym, build up my muscle, for protection. To keep people out. I will be like a bouncer, big and intimidating.”
“You are getting stronger, yes. But your strength is defined in more openness, not less. We aren’t building anything around us again.”
“Uff, but I want to! This is awful. I’m feeling everything. I’m so sad, and lonely and I feel weak. Why did you allow this to happen to me? To us?”
“Because it was time for you to grow” – Now I sound like a parent to a child that doesn’t know any better. “You had been hidden for too long…
You know that feeling, heart, when we are so overwhelmed with love for the people around us that it feels like too much? When we are afraid you may burst from happiness, and support, and love and joy, and freedom?”
“Yes” she said cautiously, not sure where this was going. “Yes I know that feeling.”
“Well, this is the other side of that. It’s important to feel this too. We need to feel whole. And I’ve kept it from you for too long.”
“I really don’t like this.”
“The steady hurt won’t last too long. I promise.
I do need to warn you though, heart, this is just a little, tiny, speck of a dent in what heartbreak can be.”
“I hate this” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I can feel it all the time. It’s soaking up all my love and turning it sour.”
“It won’t last long.” I repeat. “We need to feel it. We need to feel everything.”
My heart doesn’t respond. She is angry, I think. She is waiting and feeling and hurting.
One day.
Two days.
Three days.
A week.
“Are you there?” My heart squeaks – too long in her silence to speak with assurance.
“I’m here, heart. Not for one second did I leave.”
“I’m still a bit hopeful” She whispers with a sigh. “I didn’t notice it until yesterday. It started creeping back in.”
“That’s the point” I say, choking back a tear. “The hope never quite leaves us, that’s how we survive.”