Un-break my heart. Say you'll love me again.

I was in a store today and saw a greeting card that advised the recipient to "follow your heart".  What if you're headed in a direction that's the opposite of your heart's desire?  I thought to myself, "What if your heart doesn't want to follow?" 

I know the easy answer is to turn around, to change your destination, and to let your heart be your guide.  As Steve Jobs said, "Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition—they somehow already know what you truly want to become."

But sometimes, it's just not that easy.  Sometimes there are things that prevent you from giving your heart what it wants—which is nothing more and nothing less than simply what it wants.  They're almost always external forces.  I started to say that they're almost always outside of your own control, but that's just not true.  There's always a choice, even if the consequence is dire or heartbreaking. 

 

I guess that's what I started thinking about, the fallout of breaking your own heart by refusing to let it have what it wants.  It's a difficult position to be in, and it feels self-sacrificing, no matter the reason.  We're either letting going of something to help someone we love feel safe and content, or someone else is keeping the thing we want from us, which makes us feel persecuted and lets us fall easily into the role of emotional martyr.   

Either way, it sucks. 

So how do you continue on your journey, stumbling over your own broken heart?  It's not easy, for sure.  You take the pieces and focus on laying the path toward your destination, wherever it may be.  But stepping on your own pain and using it to propel yourself forward may not be enough to numb it. 

Do you cling to the hope that you can one day, someday?, backtrack to that fork in the road where your heart was sacrificed and go the way of original intent?  If it's feasible that you're making the temporary choice to ignore your own desires in order to bring about this sense of contentment, then hopefully there's no harm in planning to hit that road again.  But if you know there's no way back, that there's truly no way to ever return to that place and attempt a different forward... then hope is a dangerous thing.  It can send you caroming precariously up and down unfamiliar slopes, always looking over your shoulder for what you think you're missing.  And we know how well that worked out for Orpheus....

Sometimes you have to learn to deal, to put your big girl panties on and do what you gotta do.  Again, it sucks.  It hurts like hell but just has to be done.  Hopefully, eventually, you'll come to terms with the choice—whether yours or someone else's—and find some semblance of detente with your heart, so that it agrees to quit its bitching and give you a little peace and quiet, even if only for a while. 

Comments

[Driving Lights]

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