Saturday, December 1, 2012

Wild heart

I have a reckless, wild heart. In vain did my parents warn me of boundaries, and control, and steady steps to love. In vain did they counsel me in the importance of objective decisions and practical choices. In vain have I sought in life and especially love to hold myself back and measure out slowly, safely. I have a reckless, wild heart...and oh, how I have hurt. Those brutal mile long, helicopter rescue, debris strewn heart breaks that leave you shattered, and battered, and bleeding. Those tightness in the chest, sharp pain in the core, grasping for air kind of train wrecks. And yet, when the smoke clears and the dust settles, that heart gathers again and impulsively  foolishly, recklessly begins again. Oh, how it betrays me, always leaving me more vulnerable  with more invested, always the one out on the limb, looking foolish with my heart in my hands, and my foot in my mouth.

And it is ridiculous because often I don't see it coming...well, if I did, I didn't admit it until I'm all in, hands up, ready to go for broke. You'd think I'd have learned, you think I'd have slowed down, you think I'd have nothing left.

But lately...it's gone and done it again on me, twice over and this one...this one I know it's a dosey. You see, there are two little blondes with vivid blue eyes that have just captured it and tottered away with it. And they don't even know how far gone I am, they don't even know what they've done to me. How that reckless heart feels for them, something more powerful then human articulation can name. How when they giggle and smile it does flip-flops in my rib cage and catapults in my stomach. How when little hands cup my face and quizzical eyes peer deep into me, I feel as if they are somehow myself, just in another body, with goodness and innocence. And my heart feels bare and vulnerable because I know that they will always carry it with them. Someday it will be taken from this place when they leave me, they will walk away with it like another article in their suitcase...and I close my eyes tight and draw in the sharpness of pain that I already feel for that moment.

But that doesn't slow me down. Not even a little. There is no reserve of caution, even though I know of this impending heart break. Its a hundred miles a minute, careening out of control. It's a wild love affair of kisses, and adoration, and discovery, and simplistic trust, and unreserved emotions. It's dancing in the living room....both of them in my arms with their hands in my hair and heads on my shoulders. And I feel my heart falling, flying, wild and I say to it, "love reckless, for before this moment, you only ever dreamed of love."