Heartache

 Maybe not my most uplifting writing, but it's been a hard few weeks.

“Heartbreak is what happens when love is lost.”

“To love with any level of intensity and honesty is to become vulnerable.”

“Heartbreak is unavoidable unless we choose not to love at all.”

-Joe Reynolds

Oh, my heart.

I was 16 when my heart was broken. I remember lying in bed, in the dark of night, wondering if I would die of the pain in my body. In my chest. I realized it was my heart. That the word “heartache” wasn’t just a word. I realized mine literally was physically broken. I could literally feel it. I had no idea if this was normal.

34 years later, I feel these similar feelings- not the personal depth, but the pangs of the heart. It is hard to describe. The sharp intensity of angst, the corners of despair. And now I know. This is my heart and it’s doing what it does. The flight crash last week in DC brings back my internal horror of 9/11. My terror of what so many people are dealing with in the dark of the night. So many families and friends are laying there with these cells just dying within. And it seems like it is a slow tearing, like heartbreak is actually a torture of the heart.  It isn’t the rip of a band aid and done. It is there, slowly staying.

And you learn to live, knowing what is going on inside. You realize you aren’t the only human that has ever felt this and you won’t be the last. AND… that you are alone in the feelings of your heart.

You go to work the next day, the bus stop, the grocery store, for a walk, and you realize that you are on your own island, figuring out how to do this alone. There will be no one coming to save you. Nothing can turn reality around. You will never unlearn this, you can never unfeel this.

I’ve always been “too sensitive”.  To me, what an insult. That means soft, not strong. That means I’m not strong enough to weather the storm, that I’m a liability, the weak link.

But I realize now. I realize now the power of the vulnerability to feel so much, care so much, connect so much, human so much. We are all one. I am you. I share your pain and heartache. I see the story of your loved one, I see the story of your humanity.  I see perfection in the imperfect lives and families and stories that were lost. My cells are tearing, the walls are seeping their powerhouses and strength. I cannot live without being connected, even to those I do not know. I am unknowingly carrying, or wanting, to help carry a segment of this loss. I know it personally, I am you; I am of this world. I’ve picked myself up and figured out how to somehow stand up in the morning, to just go one more day.

“The brokenhearted are the bravest among us- they dared to love.” -Brene Brown.

Our country is at a crisis point I never imagined. My insides are reeling, there is always grief under anxiety. My heart is doing its thing.  For all those who have come before us and lived the ideals of our nation.  Who have served, worked, believed in, trusted, risked and LIVED the ideals of our country. And, we seem to be seeing, day by day, there is no one coming to save us.  Noone to stand up for what has been fought for and died for. The intensity of these days is not lost on me, and I am living it alongside so many.

And I’ll take it. I will find my way. I accept it.  You cannot shut out grief and heartbreak without also shutting out the possibility of joy and love. What I am holding onto as the way to wake up and carry on is the fact that we can only control where we put our attention, where we focus our own energy.  And I am choosing to continue putting my attention and energy in the things I love about the world, the way I like to be in the world, the joys that I love experiencing and sharing with others. I want to continue waking up with delight at the day, what I get to do and share and be a part of.  Every day, I try to remember to say a morning prayer of “Dear God, thank you for the gift of this day” and that is how I want to continue living my days in this world, seeing the gift, seeing the glimmers of hope and possibility and joy and love. I will find refuge in living with a full, open and brave heart. Life is both brutal and beautiful.