WhimsyCure

Yesterday, I closed at work. It was Memorial Day, so we had a huge sale and lots of people came in to get their 20% off. It was scorching hot. Even inside of an air conditioned workplace, I still was sweating tremendously; everyone else was too. I started off the day increasingly positive. Blasted my radio on the drive there, put a little extra blush on my cheeks to show the inner glow I was feeling, and smiled a genuine smile at a lot of customers I have never seen before. Then, lunch time called me. I had to step outside into that blasting heat one more time, and in the short 2 minute walk through the parking lot to the grocery store, the sun had already evaporated my happy attitude. 

When I sat down to warm my Indian food, I felt the emptiness starting to grow. By the time I was eating the peppermint chocolate ice cream, my eyes were starting to burn. As I scooped a large spoonful out of the carton, I could no longer control the tears from sliding down my face. There was no where for me to hide from my coworkers, there was no time to run to the bathroom and stare in the mirror hollering at the tears to go away, and there was no time better than the present to just let it all happen. I cried and ate ice cream, and watched it melt from the heat. My heart was melting too. Allowing myself to feel the hurt instead of letting the anger fuel my strength.

Heart Break Lesson Learned: There is also strength in having a heart that melts as quickly as ice cream. 

Yesterday, I slept a long time. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was resting in bed. Still getting over some bronchitis. Then I put on a really pretty dress, one I was saving for the 4th of July. I called my friend and we went downtown to a food festival in my city. I was smelling all sorts of different foods, eating lots of yummy desserts, and laughing too hard for someone recovering from a respiratory infection, lol. We sat at the fountain in the square, talking about love and laughing about life’s adventures.

After such a recent break-up, I could decide to stay asleep. I could waste every day, avoiding the heartache or being consumed by it. Instead, I am deciding to be awake. To live my life with laughter, friendship, and new experiences. Being awake doesn’t mean that I have stopped crying, or feeling hurt, or being disappointed. It just means that there was always more to my life than that one person. My life isn’t going to stop because a part of it is gone now. There is too much left that I want to experience, there are too many things that are still very important for me to accomplish. 

Sure, I slept with the computer in my bed last night because it is still comforting me, taking the place of where he used to be, but I woke up at 10:30, well past “our” scheduled 8 a.m. mornings, and that realization only hurt for 10 minutes. I won’t sleep my life away, but I might take a few naps until I am back to living my own way again. 

Everyone wants to be empowered by the love of someone else. Especially in those moments when you are alone in your bed at night, thinking about all the hours you spent at work, hours doing a job you don’t really believe makes a difference, instead of investing your life into something you know is truly important. We simply need someone else to hold us in that vulnerable moment and tell us that who we are is special, what we do makes a difference, and where we are going is even better than where we are now. 

Some of us are literally so miserable, so faithless, that we create a fantasy world. We lie to everyone in our life who cannot get close enough to see it for what it really is. And while we are terrified of those people who do see our reality, we are even more scared of the people who believe our lies finding out the truth about the mundane life we inhabit. Scared of the judgment, scared of the intimacy, scared of the secret thoughts that cross their minds about us. For those of us, faith is desired most. Through manipulation, through the lies, we steal the power we need from the victims of our lies. 

I am the victim of a liar. A manipulator. I was lied to for 10 months by someone who needed the power of my faith. I have been honest and brave. I trusted even though I was scared to. I loved even though I was hurt in return. Right now, I could break down and die. I could swear never to love again. Never to be in a relationship again. Never to believe that a man will be honest with me ever again. But I won’t. For some reason, I feel incredibly strong. I want to love again. I want someone to believe in who lives up to my faith. I don’t need a hero; I have a God who saves me. I would, however, enjoy a man who is courageous enough to battle our shortcomings together. 

He admired the bird from far away. He wanted to get closer. To touch her beautiful coat of feathers. So he acted like birds do. Stood on one foot, flew through the air, sang little songs, acted scared when strangers came near. The bird let him closer and closer. She let him close enough to wrap his neck with hers. They used each other’s bodies for warmth when the sun went down. But the man could not help himself. He felt bad about it, but touching her feathers was no longer enough. He needed to have them. So while she slept, he would pluck one from her beautiful coat. One wasn’t enough for her to notice at first, but soon, there were lots of feathers missing. She got scared, she held onto him for comfort. If he was there, surely she wouldn’t lose her beautiful coat. One-by-one, the feathers were gone. Then one night, the bird could not truly sleep because of all her heartache and fear. She caught the man stealing one more feather that night. That feather being pulled felt like her very heart was pulled from her chest. She opened her wings and beat him in an instant! How dare he steal her beauty, her protection. How dare he betray her trust! Now, she sits high in a tree. Looking down on him, they both cry when the sun goes down and they do not have the other for warmth. She carries a bald spot as a painful reminder of betrayal. He carries her beautiful feathers. Funny thing is, they just keep getting heavier and heavier for him, but he cannot let them go.

These moments. Little ones. When time is going real fast. Feels like it is passing very slow. I hear you breathing. I steal your oxygen. To be close to you. My fingers. Running the path of your chest. Reading. From past moments. Your laughter. Filling every corner of my heart. Loving feeling embarrassed in front of you. I have no shame. Not when I am with you. Pieces of our hearts. Once stolen away. The parts that are left over. Fit together. Quite well. Actually.

A vast ocean soul inside my chest. Lives and breathes. Ebbs and flows. In the morning, when the sun is shining down, ocean soul inside my chest is calm and tender, sweet to those who wish to enter. In the evening, ocean soul inside my chest is curious and possessed by the moon; by emotions and passions and urges and desires. Ocean soul is lonely when there are no brave men diving my depths, when moon beams are covered by cloud. Ocean soul inside my chest blesses those who courageously swim inside and touch the floor with inquisitive hands, eyes wide open in the dark. Ocean soul outside my chest, slides salty sweetly down my cheeks and rests in hands who know me.

Something happened, when you told me you love me, when you told me you mean forever, and when I realized you meant it.

“If you were me, would you love you?”

“I was surprised you ever loved me.”

-Mad Men

I think I am realizing that binding yourself in marriage to someone else is like an adoption, wherein both people sign up to make the other person a part of their family. Sure, I have a lot of friends whom I consider to be as close as family, but something different happens inside of the sanctity of marriage. Inside of this covenant, you promise God that you will take care of one another and that you will grow all the more inside of love. Baby… let’s adopt one another. Let’s be a family. Let’s take care of one another.