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Dear Heart,
We’ve been together for so many years, linked in body and breath, love and spirit. Are you as surprised and grateful as I am at how the past few years have turned out? Did you have any idea that ending a 20+ year marriage would lead to so much personal growth, new love, and joy? Did you know, somehow, that out of the pain we felt, we’d not only find new ways to love, but get at least a little better at not making the same mistakes?
Heart, I asked myself a few days ago, if I could do anything over, would I do it differently, and the answer was no. My life is my life and I accept and own all of it, even the really stupid stuff and the things I was afraid of and so on.
But, then, when I asked myself if I wished I could get 15 years back to do over, differently, that answer was yes. We lacked courage, heart, for too many years. There were too many years when my parents’ voices were in my head, too many years when I was so caught up in working and being a parent that I didn’t listen to you about much of anything else.
Man, are those days over!
There was the time, after the divorce, when you beat so softly, heart, so sensitive and tender, watching and listening to see what might come next.
And then there was the time when you beat loudly, so wild, the blood hammering in my ears as I danced, your pulse like a long-over due freedom chant in my veins.
These days, heart, you flow like a river. Your pulse beats inside my body quick one moment, and slow another, fast and wild for a bit and then, steady. The song you sing to me today, heart, is an old song I knew long ago, but now, when you sing, I actually listen.
Heart, as I have grown, you’ve grown, too. Somehow, you went from being one jealous little bee-yach, to being able to love more than one person. Curious, brave, you’ve shown me the way to joy, and to new relationships that have really enriched my life.
Heart, I am going to give you 10 points as a factor for helping me move from being a Mom to being a friend to my son. Z is a person I love, but it’s your delicacy, heart, that’s helped me shut up and listen to him. That’s made us much better friends.
And I will give you another 10 points, heart, for how you’ve shown me how much family matters, and how, as much as its work sometimes, I need to make the effort to consistently be considerate and caring of my friends. (And of me—goodness knows, I need your love, heart, as well!)
Heart, I also need to thank you for your help with the Big Love. I think it’s your relentless work as a steady-driving woman that put me on the path that led me to A. Getting into a relationship with him seemed like a stretch at the time, fraught with peril, but you made me see I had a way to protect myself. Thanks to your gentle encouragement and influence, I didn’t jump in too quick—and yet your courage helped me take some big risks—like going off on vacation together to a cottage in the middle of nowheresville just six weeks after we’d started dating, and later, coming out as non-monogamous in an essay even as A and I were falling madly in love with one another.
And of course, heart, you were a huge factor in A & I deciding to live together, and in how tender I feel toward him. Through your influence, I’ve learned how to do better as a partner and to have more compassion for other people.
But heart, at the same time that I have learned from you, I have also seen you learn from the rest of me. Again and again, I asked you be alert and to pay attention as I went out with people, to be sensual and safe as I played, to be open and brave as I got to know A. And heart, you were right there for me.
During that time when I fell for A, when I made that unexpected shift from woman on her own to yes, honey, let’s move in together,
