Bottom of my Heart

"Blue like the winter snow in the full moon / Black like the silhouettes of the trees / Late blooming flowers lie frozen underneath the stars / I want you to remember me that way." - Frozen Charlotte Natalie Merchant

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I don't know.  Is there every anything to say, really?

I haven't been thinking about anything much lately, except feelings.  Those are dangerous--feelings, I mean.  And whenever I begin a writing session it turns into a long list of complaints.  Well, I don't feel like complaining

I'm ready to return to school, despite that I'll miss my family, and my friends--though at home they are few.  Going back to school is what I need to do, but I feel like I've made a lot of progress with some of my relationships at home, and I'm afraid that leaving them will be like abandoning them.  Most of the time, even when it comes to people, I want to keep everything.

I've let go of a lot of people over the years, realizing that I just can't have everyone.  But more and more God is teaching me that I can't really have anyone.  That's a hard lesson to learn; a harder one to accept; the hardest one to live.  You can't make anyone do anything, even if you want it out of the bottom of your heart, which I realized is a place that only exists in me for some people.  Some people never get 'bottom of my heart' material, you know?  This is one of those stupid metaphors that I see in my head to explain how I feel about things.  I'm sorry.

Your heart.  Capable of being broken, torn, shredded, crushed and blasted into oblivion a thousand different ways and by just about anyone.  Also capable of being heavy, or empty, open, or closed, devoid of all feeling, content, completely and utterly full, or, in some rare cases, overflowing.  Assuming your heart exists at all, in this metaphor, and that it is filled with love, opposed to dripping with hate, jealousy, or disdain, then maybe you can understand what I mean by 'bottom of my heart.'  There are some people you will dig to the depths of your heart to pull out grade A material for.  There are others who simply skim the surface.  And, lets be honest, some people--even most people, probably--who don't get any piece of your heart at all.  It's nothing personal.  Maybe you just don't know them very well, or maybe they just aren't the type of people who require heart--perhaps they only require time.

There are the people like me--born with an open heart, full with love, and ready to give.  I used to give heart to everyone, unaware that you could get by in life without being sincere all the time.  That, too, was a difficult lesson to learn.  But sometimes people take without asking, and over the years, I learned my lesson.  I've learned to close my heart and search for the people who deserve any piece of it.  Unfortunately, not many people do.

But there is always one person who slips through the cracks.

He got in before I learned how to close my heart and now I can't get him out.  For him, I don't just keep my heart open, but I dig down to the bottom of it and come up with some truly rare gems.  It's not like he deserves it, but I give it anyway.  You know why?  Because for him, it's the only place I feel anything, and I just can't be objective.  He's always got to the bottom of my heart, without any real consent from me.  And I don't think any of that is particularly romantic, because it's not a romantic kind of love.  Romance is somewhere in the middle of your heart: deeper than civility, respect, or even consideration, and not deep enough for this.  At the bottom of my heart is the ability to forgive.  The ability to see past weakness.  The ability to see potential, and greatness, and hope.  The ability to see good.  I used to do that for everyone, now I only do it for him and I take everyone else as they come.

There are certainly people who have gotten to the bottom of my heart the hard way, they've gone through all the layers and they earned their place down there at the bottom (as it were).  He never did earn his place.  So why did he get to keep it, while everyone else somehow got pushed out?  Is it because I'm stubborn?  Because I'm one of those girls who can't see what's bad for them even if it's staring them in the face?  I never thought I was.  Who knows; anyone can be bad for you.  But sometimes there are reasons you endure.

I know I have a hard time letting people into my heart now.  Most of the time I even keep my family outside of it because it's just too hard to let them in, or to try to explain.  But that doesn't mean I want to learn the lesson--I still don't want to learn quite yet that no one is mine to keep.

But my heart--anyone's heart for that matter--is worth the fight.  Even if people steal from the bottom, skim off the top, or throw away everything you've ever given them.  I learn a little more every day what it means to give, or to feel.  When you can give from the bottom of your heart, sometimes you can just feel when people really really love you back, like you can see straight through them.  And it's hard to see through someone you love and know they don't love you back quite as well as you love them.  But if you really do love them, you'll give them all the time it takes for them to feel as deeply as you do.  Because, don't you owe that to someone who's gotten to the bottom?  Don't you owe that to someone who you've never been able to banish from the bottom, no matter how hard you've tried?

Because the moment you know they love you the way you love them is the moment your heart overflows.

And nothing's better than that.  Is there?