Rush of my Heart

I spotted it 15 minutes into the bible study class.

At first I squinted my eyes and narrowed my vision into a tiny point, aimed at the high wall across the room, out the door, and over the gravel street into the small single paned window of an old wooden shed. It was a tiny movement behind the glass, small, fluttering, then gone. I blinked hard a few times, and tried to clear the darkness that so often impairs my vision these days. The small glass window pane was empty again, and I thought I had imagined it. But 30 seconds later, there it was again – the tiny, miniscule body of a hummingbird, fluttering it’s tiny wings, beating against the window from the inside of the dark building.

He was trapped. That much was obvious. How long had he been in there, staring out the window at the pine covered mountains surrounding us? At the flowers planted around the property, nothing but colorful teases with their promises of nectar? How long had he been watching the sky change from blue to orange as the sun sank low? How long had he been smelling the clean summer air that was just beyond his reach?

My heart erupted in my chest as I watched him drop from my line of sight, only to reappear a few seconds later and try to escape through the clear glass again – as if some insane faith that things would be better the next time he tried kept him from giving up and refusing to rise again. He had to escape the darkness. He didn’t know how, but he had to keep trying.

Suddenly, more than anything else, I needed to get the keys to that shed.
I looked around the crowded room. It was a full class. The discussion topic was deep, and incredibly personal. 18 minutes into the class – people were opening up. Getting to the heart of the matter. Getting to the nectar that ultimately binds us closer as a church family. I couldn’t interrupt it.

My ears turned towards the discussion. My eyes strayed towards the tiny bird. He followed a pattern – rise and fall. Rise and fall. Never ceasing, always hovering to the glass to peer out, each time nudging his nose against it in the hopes that it would give. This time. Maybe this time. I began to rise.

The discussion turned towards somebody that I used to know. I fell back to my seat. More than know – somebody that I loved. Somebody that I loved and lost. My whole family lost him back when I was only 7. Not nearly enough time. Not nearly enough time.
My vision darkened, and cleared, and I found myself wondering what he’d felt as he lost his completely.
I watched the little bird fight for life. Rise, fall. Rise, fall.

I felt my chest rise as I listened. I felt it fall.

Life and death are both such heartwrenching things. It takes strength to do both.

________________________

The heart is a fragile thing.
At least, it should be.

Some owners of hearts don’t seem to know this. Some holders of hearts abuse the ones who do.

I suppose if this were my own private journal, the one in my artfully stained top drawer with birds and flowers on the cover, I’d be quoting one-sided conversations, stating just what was going through my head as I had them with the computer screen, hoping one day I’d see him talking back to me, answering the endless questions I had – and still do. I write these details in the silent, nonjudgmental books sometimes so that later when I read my journals, I can remind myself that I did the right thing. So that I can read my own words to myself, hear my own voice within my own head telling myself that no one within a committed relationship should have to wait 4 months for a response without any explanation. No one should.

You did the right thing. You may still not believe that he could do this, but you did the right thing.

I think the hardest lesson to learn in all of life is that people can change so drastically. I’ve already learned it, and yet – I still feel like this time, again, the lesson has brought me to my knees. They may not be skinned as badly as the first time, because those scars are still there from years ago, but they’re definitely bloody once again. I thought that this time I’d found the safety net. I thought the surprises were over. The ride before him had had incredible highs, and the lowest of lows. And when my heart broke that first time, I was shattered. So when he had come along, offering stability and security, I’d slowly taken his hand.

His idea of security and mine are very different.

I won’t pretend to know or understand his reasons for dropping off the face of the earth when it comes to our relationship. The distance made it easy for him to do so I suppose, though nothing prepared me for it. No big fight, no indication, no warning. Just a sudden nothingness that I may never get an explanation for.
My heart grieves for myself, and the confusion I feel.
My heart grieves for my brother, who he stood behind in a church just 8 months ago as a best friend should, as a best man ought to. His inbox and phone remain as empty and quiet as mine do, despite his own efforts to understand the silence.
My heart grieves for my parents, who had already accepted this man they loved into our family, and who believed they had found a safe future for their daughter.
My heart grieves for the lost future I used to speak of with who this new stranger used to be.
And my heart grieves for him – because he’s not the man I knew. I wonder what happened to him out there across an ocean. I wonder what happened to his heart.

The heart is a fragile thing.
At least, it should be.

I’ve wondered for so long if I should stay silent. I’ve wondered if it would cross some kind of line to leak some of my heart into a blog, to accept the comfort these black keys offered to me by lending their faces to my fingers as a way to put words to the pain in my heart. Would it be too cliche? Would I become one of those people who I despise on Facebook, who share way too much about their lives through status updates?
I hate that. Is talking about this pain in my own life anything like this? The things people decide to post online is quite amazing. I know what I’ve seen in these past months in relation to my own circumstances has made these difficult decisions easier. It’s also made my sleep harder to come by. Anger can do that. Hurt can do that. Phones that don’t ring and tagged pictures can do that.

It’s now been almost 5 months of silence. I wonder if he’ll ever say a single word more to me. Offer any explanation.
I wonder if the last thing I’ll ever have heard him say to me is, “I’ll call you right back.”
My heart is just so tired.

Doctors practically throw medications at you for a tired heart. When they don’t know what else to do for you, it seems they will always try this.

“Cymbalta may help with your nerve pain. It will also improve your mood.”
“Lyrica could help the pain in your arm, leg, and feet. It will also improve the way you feel about your life.”
“Effexor might help with the migraines. It will also have a positive impact on your feelings about your circumstances.”

I don’t believe that pills are the answer anymore. Medications are not the way to cure me from sadness, or anyone (in my opinion) who suffers from the inescapable, occasionally agonizing affair of simply living a life. Welcome to being a human.
I spent a miserable year “getting help.”** It wasn’t for me. I truly believe it can be for some. But it wasn’t for me.

No, let me live. Let me feel. And let me heal.
Hopefully my body will follow suit.

These past 6 months have been a bit ridiculous, medically. Seemingly endless bouts of bleeding, GI specialists, tests, procedures, more tests. Pain. I began to lose the vision in my right eye, which brought me to another doctor, which led to more specialist, more tests, an MRI, and a diagnosis of a Psuedo Tumor. Lingering spinal pain. I had an episode where I lost muscle control in both of my arms while playing drums in the middle of a church service. Fear followed as I ran out the side door, my half useless body keeping my racing mind company as I cried outside on a summer morning. My right arm never regained full strength, which is the most frustrating when I’m trying to record my music. It has since been accused of having nerve damage by a neurologist. The nerve.

Some doctors say I have a problem with my spinal fluid drainage, which is putting pressure on my brain, which is in turn putting pressure on my optic nerves, causing them to swell, which is causing my loss of vision. Another specialist disagrees. Another specialist believes all of these things could be an indication of Multiple Sclerosis, which is what we’ve all been thinking, but can’t say for sure. How can we ever know when every doctor says something different? How can we ever get answers when each specialist is waitlisted? When they cost a fortune and the best they can offer is to send me home with counseling and mood altering pills until more episodes manifest? How can that be the best they can do? Of course my mood isn’t great. Of course I cry in their offices every time I’m there these days. I’m frustrated. I’m tired. I need help. I want someone who has empathy, who actually sees me as a person instead of a patient to get through on the daily charts. I suppose I’m asking for too much, because I’m not only asking for their help, but their heart. If I were a doctor, I like to think I’d give a piece of mine to my patients. I’m sure that’s a million times easier to say than to do, but I still like to think it.

The heart is a fragile thing.
At least, it should be.

This may be true, but I believe mine is also somewhat the consistency of beef jerky at this point. Fragile beef jerky. Dainty beef jerky that has the tendency to make it’s owner cry. What other choice does it have but to just keep beating? I’m throwing myself into my music. I’m recording a new EP. I’m playing shows. I’m traveling back to California. Heck, I’m even going to Disneyworld. That’s right. Screw bad health. Forget the boy who decided that he’s better off forgetting you, without so much as a phone call to break up.

_______________________

Every time I pass that window in the dark shed on the church property, I think of the tiny trapped hummingbird I saw rising and falling behind the window that night.
I freed him, and watched him rise into the sky. I felt my heart rise with him knowing his would continue beating, if only for another night.

I feel my chest rise as I sit here in the dark and write. I feel it fall.

The heart is a fragile thing.
At least it should be.

** http://randiray.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/im-not-sick-but-im-not-well/