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Dear Heart of Mine --
I think you are a floppy heart. You are dear, but dear and floppy. You will never march to a Souza tune. (You have no feet, after all.) Instead of thumpa-thumpa, I think you say "Flop, flobbada -- flobbada, flop."
I do love you, but you are a pushover, a wimp, a patsy for a sob story. If I watch a sad movie, or even a sad commercial, you send instant messages to my tear ducts. "flop, flobbada". Soon I end up crying big, wet, cartoon-tears.
And, heaven help you, you cannot resist any scruffy urchin who comes up to you with cookies or seeds or candy bars or magazines too sell for school. All the kid has to do is get wide-eyed and have a pleading look, and *poof* you make me sign up for seeds I won't plant, magazines I won't read and chocolate I shouldn't eat. And if the kid looks poor enough and says something about really wanting to win that bicycle, well, sign me up for an extra box, packet, envelope.
You even made me adopt a flea-bitten, filthy-haired, terrier years ago. Toby just wandered into our yard and gave us that "adopt me" look. My then husband said no, but you prevailed on me to give him that "adopt-the-poor-thing" look, and Toby became ours. He washed up into a dandy old pooch, and was a big joy.
Once when I was a kid, some people were laughing at a scraggly old tree in the Christmas tree lot, saying how no one would buy such a thing. From that day on, you always make me select the most pathetic-looking Christmas tree in the lot, so we can take it home, dress it up and make it feel magnificent. No Christmas tree gets ridiculed on your watch!
You may have been an easy mark, but I love you, anyway. You have been steadfast. Lordy, lordy, lordy, I have put you through your paces over time.
You early years weren't so easy. Your younger beats weren't all fun and games. As I type that, you remind me that you'd rather I didn't tell so many strangers how hard those years were. But you'll let me leave a picture behind of a little scared girl crouching at the top of the hallway stairs one night, listening in secret while her parents yelled and screamed downstairs. It was cold. You beat very fast, and felt very sad.
But you fluttered with joy in those years, too. There were long, soothing walks through the woods with our mother, picking wildflowers, gathering mushrooms. There were happy romps with pals and your dog, Princess, the ever lovin', black cocker spaniel.
You have been no stranger to romance. When Coy McCleary spotted you in the playground during second grade, your heart learned a fun, new rhythm, a skip-to-my-lou rhythm. There he was, the tall new kid from "somewhere down south". His Dad was a Lt. Colonel in the Airforce. Coy was tall, gangly, a basketball player. He had hair that fell over his forehead like a forelock. Even then, he had a slightly brooding look, a heavy lidded up-gaze, like Elvis. All the girls thought he was fine, but it was me he was interested in --- the bookish, not-so-popular girl with a vocabulary bigger than everyone around her -- it was me . When I wasn't being mystified about that, you nudged me into a happy place.
And now that we are talking about Romance -- it is there that I have put you through your paces. You've done the "flop-flobbada" for an interesting assortment of men, including one longish marriage. I must say it has been an adventure. You seem to beat with a come hither "flop flobbada" tone to smart, creative men who appreciate (among other things) intellect. You've had to learn a bit about timing - when to flop and when to hold back flopping, but by and large, you've closen well. In truth, there were a few "off" choices -- men that we'd rather forget -- men who didn't treat you, dear heart, with the respect you deserved. Please accept my apologies as I let Margaret Whiting sing to you, croon to you - "My Foolish Heart":
Oh silly girlheart, never forget
