If You Tug At My Heart Strings

If you tug at my heart strings, all the feelings that have been inserted fall out.
I know because my heart strings got tugged on and all the emotions that had been stored within fell out onto a pile.
A pile that resembled a large entangled assortment of small toys scooped out from under a child's bed mixed in with dirty laundry.
It was neither a pleasant nor discernible sight.
Yet there it was at my feet; on the floor in front of me.

I wanted to just walk away (or run) but that's pretty hard to do when part of your vital organ (my heart) is dislodged from within.
Stunned and overwhelmed, I wondered, where do I start?!

I sat down beside it, staring, exasperated at the feat that lay ahead.
Something I hoped someone else could clean up, and yet internally, I knew would not be possible.
For only I would know where each piece belonged that I would be individually extricating from the heap.

Only I would know the where or why each piece originated.
What each piece represented.
Only I could understand and experience the feelings affiliated with each piece.

Only I could close up and tie my heart back together.
And in turn, restore it to a functioning state again.

So I sat there alone, as tears rolled down my face and said:
This one, goes in the pile for my youngest son who graduated and moved away.
This one, in the broken-hearted pile of lost love.
This one, will go into the loneliness pile.
And this one, in the lost dreams pile.
This one... in the pile with the loss of a job and throw in loss of esteem while you're at it.
This one, for truth-that-hurts pile.
This one, for selfish doings by others not understood.
This one, for children's aching hearts that even a mother can not mend.
And this one, for feelings of confusion and exhaustion from life's trials.

Do you understand now why it's best not to tug on my heart strings?

Because you can not really separate the immense love that compiles that same heart from the pains it contains.
The love is the house, much like the oyster is for the pearl, which is what transforms pain into appreciation.
Appreciation for having the desire and ability to take a chance at caring and loving.
Over and over again, knowing the risk you are taking. 

It is the shell that encompasses life's greatest blessings and life's sorrows.
...That, of experiencing love, no matter how short, which means sorrow will come at its loss.

But something unexpected happened.
As I started sorting through each piece, the memory of a heart filled with love accompanied each loss.
And I was reminded of sweet, often happy, special memories, one by one which had built up to the loss as I picked up each piece and examined it.
I became less aware of the pain as peace started to slowly settle in and comfort me.
And I now sensed and felt that I was no longer sitting there alone going through this.

I knew that the love I had for God, and the love that He had instilled in me and had for me, had made the yearning I so deeply have in my heart possible; because as a mere human I would be too callused after repeated losses.
I knew that He had made the challenge to love, alive.
That no matter how many times I have been disappointed and hurt, I still had hope. 
I still want and believe in "happily ever after".
And I knew that it had helped me desire good and continue to search for heartwarming joy in my life.
And in that enlightened knowledge I understood as I sat there, at a deeper level, that heart strings are for all that life offers, both tender, beautiful moments as well as heart wrenching ones that get stored together.
And that that all encompassing emotion called love, made it worth every tug I felt.      

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.  ~Kahlil Gibran

The Cybership: Acceptable Insanity (SHORT STORY)

I decided to try my hand at a short story.


As the hands of the clock approached midnight, unlike the classic fairy tale, the night was just beginning.  At the click of a modern-day mouse, the magic would commence-with one letter at a time; transforming ordinary words into extraordinary descriptions of a secret life just waiting to be expressed.

The fact that she was computer illiterate (a Luddite at that), had little effect and was not a deterrent to keep her from typing and texting out the life she had longed for but had only experienced vicariously; mostly through movies made to melt a woman's heart but bore a man while making him squirm. 

She spent hours configuring- if only- in words.  Painting pictures between lines, of vivid moments depicting what love looks like in an "us bubble"; too ideal to be true, yet too true to the heart not to be pursued.

She was able to formulate thoughts, dreams, and ideas, anywhere and anytime; often making it difficult to concentrate on her work at hand.  Sometimes even blurring reality with her fantastical images and thoughts surrounding her new project-that of creating something which before seemed improbable.  That of a cyber-ship.  A relationship formed and bonded in space.  The space of time and verbiage.....something she had honed to an art.

As the interactions became frequent and consistent, so did the anticipation of advancing to the next level.  The physically, non-physical level, accepted under the circumstance yet still desirable.  A level mixed with skepticism, uncertainty, and vulnerability.  A level probable to cause concern for one's sanity if ever exposed.  Yet she continued to wait for the change, the sign, that it wasn't insane at all, but possible and even inevitable.  And during an exchange of promise, it happened without notice.

Hard drives and hardware could not keep her from feeling the warmth of his kiss as he moistened her mouth with his, causing her emotions to drown any sensibilities--that what she was experiencing was impossible.  Because for her, every vital sign in her body testified otherwise.

So what'd you think?





 

The Hope Seed

"Once you choose hope, anything's possible."~ Christopher Reeve

 

I was on my way to the women's jail to lead an Al-Anon meeting and I wondered what I was doing.

Not for going to the facility itself but for my purpose.

Did I really think there was anything I could say to inspire these women?

Anything that could give them the belief in themselves to change their lives?

Here I was a woman with every freedom trying to encourage women who had little or none at all to believe that there was a better life awaiting them.

For them, that probably translates into 
'yeah right sister', ' somewhere over the rainbow' or 'in your dreams'!

And it is in my dreams.

I do want them to believe there is something better than what they now have.

I do want them to have hope.

And then I thought, 'I can do that!'

'I can plant a seed of hope!'

Although I have never been physically incarcerated could I share the prison I had lived in for much of my life?

Could I  share how life has not always the best for me and I have not always made the best choices but I have chosen now to make different choices?

Could I  share how I too have fear and am still working on liking/loving myself and how there have been hopeless and dark places in my heart and life?

And could I share how I have overcome those and continue to grow?

Could I share how unlovable I have felt?

How I believed I deserved to be treated badly?
How I even allowed it?

But how that has all changed?

Could I share it without portraying 'better than' or 'unattainable'?

I remember the first time I went to a meeting.
Sitting with twenty women, I recognized that
there was not even enough self-esteem in that room to fill a teaspoon.

It was non existent.
These women did/do not understand who they truly were/are.
They did/do not know their true worth.


I had been in that prison.

That broke my heart to think they may be feeling the same way.

And it also explained a lot of things.

I could share.


With many of them being there only a short time, ( because they are awaiting notice of new residency) I may only interact with them a few times if that much.

How do you instill in a woman who does not believe it is possible, the idea that she can change her life?

How do you plant that seed when all you have is a few short exchanges?


How do you give them hope?
How do I tell them they are already loved?
That they have Gods unconditional love?
And convince them the seed will grow if they care for it?

I could tell them if they have faith and are diligent and patient and long-suffering in nurturing the seed, that that seed will eventually bring forth fruit.

Fruit in the form of a better life.


That there really is a promise if they do what they can: That someday they will pluck the fruit.
That it will be the most precious and sweet above all that is sweet.
That the fruit that will come forth is enough to fill them, that they no longer will hunger nor thirst.

Imagine if no one hungered and thirsted anymore for love and acceptance!
If everyone had it?
If everyone had IT?
If everyone knew who they really are?



What a different place this world would be!

We would find full hearts and lives

And empty jails!
(Both physically and spiritually.)

"Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark."~George Iles

The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow

I have had some draggy days.
I do not know if that is a 'real' word but it so describes how I have been feeling this past week.


I have been sick with some sort of bug that has made me tired and achy.
For that I can say I am dragging.
Thank goodness I am at a point in my life where I can take some time to be 'real sick'.
I honestly do not know how I did it all those years when I had no choice but to plow forward.
I must acknowledge that God knew of my responsibilities and had to have had His hand in my well-being.

My heart has also been sad this week.
I do not know if I will ever fully understand the cruelty of others.
Or what motivates some people to be so insensitive and mean.
What posses a person to treat someone like that?
That is a rhetorical question.


So with a heavy heart and not much energy to carry the weight, I have had some emotionally, draggy days.


But the sun always comes up tomorrow or sometime there after.
Of this I have no doubt!

 "It's not so much what happens to us but how we deal with what happens to us."~James E. Faust