Beating Heart Literal

[mrdreamjeans]

I’ve often taken the heart beating in my chest for granted. It seems to be functioning properly and is of conventional size. It’s where it’s supposed to be in my chest. We’ve all heard of enlarged hearts in a clinical sense; but, I’m curious as to the size of my heart when it comes to feelings, emotions, thoughts. I imagine it as chameleon-like ... changing size, shape and color due to circumstances or events.

As I was driving today, an odd thought popped into my head. Does my heart get smaller, like a clenched fist, when it’s been hurt, felt loss or been disappointed? With the events of the past two years ... the isolation, change of career, parents’ health, the death of friends and dearth of joy, it’s often felt like my heart was physically smaller in my chest ... contracted and constricted ... beaten and bruised ... retreating to a protected corner of my body to recover from the blows.

I picture it in my chest as this tiny, pulsng blob, shy, reclusive, fearful of being hurt, diminished in size because of disuse, trying its best to be invisible to protect itself. Sometimes, it reaches out to me and reminds me of my sadnesses ... Neil, you’ve known what it is to love someone fully and unconditionally and it wasn’t enough ... You’ve lost your best friend to death without a chance to say goodbye ....You’ve lost a close friendship with no closure or understanding of why .... You’ve been mugged, hated without reason, because of some small quirk in your DNA. Why would you continue to put me out there?

Yet steadily, my heart continues to beat. I feel it wanting to take up more space in my chest. Can my heart achieve emotional rebirth by opening its chambers once again to feelings of passion and positivity? Can I will it to do so? Can my brain inform my heart to heal, survive and strive to love again? Perhaps, next time more wisely and well?

I wonder if opening up myself to new friendships here in my journal, and in life, is one of the paths my heart is taking to recover. By knowing and remembering love, is my heart once again feasting on blood ...marvelously engorged ... beating fiercely and determinedly because I’m ready to participate fully in life again? When I speak to my friends, or see some of them like I did on vacation, is my heart literally filling up with energy and light, expanding in my chest from excitement, from feeling? Is it expanding its capacity to love because it’s learned important lessons from past encounters with grief, loss and disappointment?

Last evening a troubled friend who had disappeared from my life (though I searched high and low to find him) picked up the phone and called me from Maine ... He invited me back into his life. A long-time friend has recently become very comfortable with the words, “I love you”. Such simple actions fill me with joy! I can feel my heart pulsing more strongly in response to the changes. As the David Friedman song says, “Listen to my heart. Listen to it sing. Listen to my heart. It wants to tell you eveything.” I think my heart is telling me, Listen carefully to each and every beat I take. Take nothing for granted. Be strong! Be confident! In a weekend dedicated to Pride, I do believe I'm a beating heart literal:)