Ok I have not been a poster child for this one...I have, for the most part, kept my heart closed for the majority of my life. This was due to my heart being so open when I was young and getting it completely decimated. Each time I made a decision to open up, I would each time again close it all down when I would invariably be hurt.
And I did this whole open, slam shut things for years. However, on the heels of my divorce, I found myself wide open and boy did I allow someone all the way in. Further, in fact, than I ever had before...and fuck if I didn’t get leveled again. I mean this one destroyed me more than any other and it took me the better part of four years to get over it.
But an odd thing happened this time around. I wished to slam the door on my open, wounded, barely beating heart, but I couldn’t. As hurt as I was at this person who dealt the leveling blow, I couldn’t harden towards him. I just loved him still and even though he was gone, well mostly gone, I couldn’t do the things that I needed to do to really get him out of there. The heart was open and I unable to close it off.
I tried, believe me. But my heart remained open, so open in fact that when he came back a couple of times, I allowed him back in somehow believing that this time it would be different...it wasn’t.
So the natural conclusion would be to really take action to seal him out forever. But that is not how it went.
My heart stayed open and while it did leave me vulnerable to his repeated re-entries into my life, my heart healed even while it was being re-injured. It was kinda like a puncture wound, there isn’t much they can do for you - it can’t be sewn up lest infection get sealed in there and fester. A puncture wound just has to heal from the inside out. And that is exactly what happened in my heart’s case. I healed from the inside out. And that left me a little vulnerable to him when he came back as my own exterior was the last to heal.
But my heart remained open the entire time, towards him, towards his children, towards myself. I just loved us all even though expressing that love for him was not something that I could actually do anymore. And guess what, a short four years later, I feel healed. Finally.
I dreamt about him last night, as I have often over the years, and even my subconscious was in agreement that our time together now ended. The dream brought him back into my life as he had come before in real life, but in the dream, I didn’t want him. I didn’t want to get back into the fray with him. I watched it all unfolding, as it has many time before, but this time, I told him no. I hugged him and kissed his cheek and walked away.
So today I sit relieved that my insides and outsides match. My subconscious supportive of my conscious mind instead of scheduling sneak attacks where I fall prey to old ideas dressed up as new, shinier versions of the same old shit. Today, I feel healed and open which is pretty amazing.
My heart stayed open AND it healed. I didn’t even know that was possible. Really, I didn’t. I thought that I would some day have to seal him off, close off my heart. But instead what I have learned is though all the feelings I have felt and tears I have cried were super painful...they were necessary to keep my heart open so that I could love in spite of the pain, the loss and the heartbreak. Today, I do not have to labor hard to get the door of my heart dislodged from its jaded, locked position. The doors remain flung agape and I am just fine. So relieved to not have to begin to do the heavy lifting of moving that immensely heavy door again...
Today I do not feel vulnerable to believing that there will ever be a next time. I am the guardian of my own life (well, me and spirit) and I know all too well the perils of that particular love affair. Today I can love from a safe distance while remaining open. What a gift. I am so grateful that this openness was given to me and present while I healed. I needed the love I felt to go somewhere and because I stayed open and aware, the love was able to flow back to me when I needed it most. I found a way to love and grieve and grieve and love. Which has landed me at the shores of myself ready to love someone else finally. All the strings cut, and finally free of a love that changed me.
Open hearts reveal a new truth, most importantly about ourselves. A new reality that while based upon the past, is not the past repeating. We are introduced again to ourselves, heart gaping and pumping wildly, healed and ready to take on love’s next lesson, praying always that perhaps this time it might be lasting. Knowing that regardless, an open heart heals, grows and allows for love to be flow back to sender if the intended recipient should fail to leave a forwarding address...
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