My heart is a wild, strange thing. It has known tremendous heights and the very depths of hell. It has been stronger than I ever imagined it could be, and as fragile as thinnest glass.
I often consider my physical heart, the one that beats and has kept me alive. I worry a little more these days, having just lost my mom to the effects of heart disease one month ago today. She had parents who died instantly from massive coronary incidents, while hers was more insidious..... first, hypertension, then a small heart attack, followed by atrial fibrillation, and then the myocardial infarction that led to organ shutdown and her passing. My doctor -- already drawing blood every quarter for lab work due to another issue -- is now adding another test to look for additional cardiovascular markers and diseases. One more monster for the anxiety barn....
But my metaphysical heart .... my emotional center and the thing that most defines me .... oh, my heart, how you have suffered and ached all because you could not stop loving. No matter how large I once was physically, my heart was at least 3 times that size, even behind turreted walls and towers of steel. I could lock you away like Rapunzel and yet you grew wings and soared all the more.....
Then you were shot down, plummeting to earth and crash-landing in a pile of thorns. Yet you managed to get up, in some Sacred Heart-like fashion, bruised and battered and still beating. Still loving. Healing as you went, you remained guarded and to this day you are guarded still. I promised I wouldn't give you away so easily, and never again to someone so unworthy of such pure emotion.
I lavish my affection on my godchildren (who stole my heart from their first day), my dog (delight of my heart), and to music which has been the blood pumping through that mystical heart of mine. Its beats are a life rhythm for me.
Brave and breaking. Victorious and vulnerable. Strong and soft. All my heart.
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