Love

Photo:  Ancient castle illuminated at night overlooking Molyvos, Lesbos, Greece

Tonight in meditation, my back started to hurt.  It was easy to believe that it was just tired after sitting on the floor for 3 days.  But as I sat there in the stillness, I started to notice that the pain was very specific and was located right where the lowest points of my shoulder blades met. In the middle of my back. Right behind my heart.

A song I hadn't heard in a long time, popped into my head.  The song wouldn't stop repeating and I felt small tears start to roll down my cheeks. Not my usual meditation practice.  If you know me at all, you know I do not believe in coincidence.  Why this song?  Why now?  When I got back to my room, I played it to see if I remembered the words, the theme, correctly. 

Star Trek used to call space the final frontier.  For me, it is my heart.  The one area I have been unwilling to explore.  Convincing myself regularly that love, in the romantic sense, is just something I was not meant to have in my life.  I have worked on so many other aspects of myself, but I am finally realizing that having an open heart, including the parts I choose not to acknowledge, is key to fully moving forward in my life.  I am still unsure what that means for me though.  How do I open it?  When will I know that my heart is finally "there"? 

The marker most of us use for an open heart is love.  I am swimming in love.  My family, my friends, my community.  I acknowledge the beauty of love in those areas of life every time I get the opportunity.  There is an intimacy in those spaces, with those people in my life, but not the same type of intimacy that I could find with a romantic partner. 

Perhaps it is because I am in a beautiful place.  I am with couples who obviously respect and care for each other.  Perhaps it is simply that I am out in the world, not sitting in my living room.  Which, I am sadly coming to realize, is where I spend way too much time.  But for the first time in a long time, I am craving that type of love.  The true knowing of someone other than myself.  Someone I can share my life with and feel comfortable doing so.  Loved.  Respected.  Valued.  Creating something together.

A large part of my life has been lived with the belief that I was somehow not worthy of romantic love.  I didn't deserve it. I wasn't good enough. I hadn't somehow earned it.  Maybe I am ready for it now because I have learned that I am worthy.  I had to learn how to love myself first.  To not wait for someone else to tell me it was okay; to validate me.

I spent 62 years building the wall around my heart mentioned in the lyrics below.  But even the sturdiest of walls have small cracks.  And as Leonard Cohen says in "Anthem",

"There is a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in" 

I finally see that I need to dismantle the wall.  Create larger cracks.  Let more light in.  Finding a partner may or may not happen.  But if I am ever going to fully learn to love myself and trust my path forward, I now realize that I have no choice.  The final frontier has to be crossed.  My old heart longs to be set free.

Hello My Old Heart - The Oh Hellos

Hello, my old heart

How have you been?

Are you still there inside my chest?

I've been so worried, you've been so still

Barely beating at all

Hello, my old heart

It's been so long

Since I've given you away

And every day, I add another stone

To the walls I built around you

To keep you safe

Hello, my old heart

How have you been?

How is it being locked away?

Don't you worry, in there you're safe

And it's true, you'll never beat

But you'll never break

Nothing lasts forever

Some things aren't meant to be

But you'll never find the answers

Until you set your old heart free