Growing Pains

As a 6 year old I dreamed of getting married

When I was 13 I thought boys were gross

It didn’t last long.

At 14 I had my heart broken for the first time

I vowed never to give it away again.

But years passed and resolution fell into curiosity at possibility

Of being there for someone

Of having someone be there for me

At 16 I closed my eyes and leapt
With the wings of angels and the faith of a child

And a heart filled with nothing but hope. . .

I landed on my face

With my heart dumped at my feet.

To say that it was broken would be cliché and an understatement. It was ground into the dust and scattered in the grass to lie there with no hopes of being sewn back together because there was nothing left to sow.

I can’t tell you how long I cried because when tears rain without count

and your heart breaks over and over

Time

Doesn’t

Exist.

But I taped a smile on my face and pulled out a vacuum in attempts to suck it up and keep my bits of heart in a jar and leave it on a cluttered shelf to collect dust to the point where I couldn’t tell what parts were mine and what parts were just lint.

The empty hole that should have been full

ached for something, anything

In middle school, you can’t allow yourself to show that

I cut the corners of my mouth up in a grin more grotesque than the Jokers because at least he was able to smile on his own accord.

Mine was held up with strings

The same strings that I danced to, held up by social stigmas and fear of rejection. My puppet arms limp, my heart gone, but smiling none the less.

In that bright spot light of center stage,

I was absolutely alone.

 I surrounded myself with happy faces and open arms but it was so shallow

My shoes wouldn’t even get damp if I stepped in it.

At 16 I swore off love

The following years were spent floating back and forth between social spheres like a soap bubble caught on the breeze.

I didn’t belong anywhere.

With a thousand friends but only a handful that I could share my soul with.

And then I found a dork.

In a room filled with ignorance it made him shine all the brighter.

Golden hair, blue eyes, dimples, and a wicked sense of humor.

I believe the proper phrase is,” I was hooked.”

My shards of heart started longing again and the little butterflies in my stomach made me unable to sit  even though my head protested

But with my years of training, wearing a mask and stenciling a smile, I presented myself calmly and coolly like I always do.

He was a nervous wreck.

And I loved it.

Tumbling over his lips, secrets of past loves, broken dreams, and seemingly ridiculous fears hurled forward at me in a wave of honesty.

This boy handed me his heart without even knowing it. . . And the butterflies went wild.

This is what I’d been craving. That honest human connection that can only come with opening up your heart to someone. His was sitting right in front of me on a shiny new table while mine was on a cluttered shelf.

I dashed through the front door to grab my fragile jar,

But he’d already driven off.

I left it on the porch with a sticky note taped to the top just in case he came back.

I didn’t want it anymore.

A day passed by, filled with anxiety and ridiculous curiosity for this boy in a giant golden behemoth of a van with that little scar above his lip.

He didn’t come back.

But I had felt it. . . the blood returning to my veins giving me a feeling as if a millions of pins and needles were being jabbed into me.

And I loved it.

The first feeling that I had had in quite a while. There was no way in Hell that I was letting him slip through my fingers.

Cutting through my strings and grabbing my dusty jar I ran out the front door and barreled head first into a conversation that probably would have taken months to come to pass.

I sat in the passenger’s seat but I was driving. Steering the conversation wherever I needed it to go.

And he knew it.

I start picking up speed and hurtle head first off that dreaded cliff. That leap that not too long ago had left me flat on my face. He knows exactly where we’re headed and the windows on his side fog up from the hurried breaths that were coming.

Before I knew it or even had to think of whether or not he was a good idea or not, we both fell.

And I was terrified.

All of the horrors of the past came back to taunt me with brutally accurate insults.

“You can’t be loved.”

The strings on my body pull taught and I feel the weight of conformity crushing my wooden body, threatening to break the jar in my arms.

And then I feel a gentle hand, helping me up from the heap I lay in and softly severing the lines that had kept me prisoner for so long. He motioned to my jar.

One last longing look at the thing I held so near and dear to me. . .

Then I unscrewed the lid and poured the remnants into his hands.

He took my hands and we clasped the little mound and helped me mold it back into the semblance of what looked to be a little heart. The kind that you get from your five year old sister on Valentine ’s Day. .

A rush of warmth poured into me and filled me from the tips of my toes to the top of my head and everything in between.  

And I loved it.

This handsome young man who I was terribly enamored with, loved it too.

A bit nervous as to what would happen next, and not necessarily sure of what had just transpired, I lean in to give him a hug.

And end up with his mouth against mine.

And I loved it.

Three months later and I still love it.

Time passed in a blur of

Sporadic dates,

Late night phone calls,

Peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the parking lot,

Stolen kisses,

Laughing so hard our sides ached,

I didn’t want it to end.

I thought it never would.

Blind to the anger that burned beneath him,

Blind to the demons he harbored,

Blind to the inescapable truth that something so essential held us apart.

Blinded by that brilliant smile and blue eyes.

But as I’d already found, all facades have to end eventually.

To be whole without needing another,

That is living.