Guarded Hearts

Goodbyes suck. Perhaps I should be more tactful. Ahem. Goodbyes can be disheartening, gloomy, solemn, sullen...want more? I could write simply that, and this post would be more than self-explanatory. ....Sigh.... We all hate it, but we all say it almost every day. Goodbye. Godspeed. The words in and of themselves are positive in a sense. 'Good' entails something uplifting, and Godspeed? Well, that could actually be taken quite comically in a literal sense. (I picture a bright red mustang convertible with a man in flaming white robes cruising down the highway... sacrilegious? Perhaps. But it's pretty funny nonetheless.) Anyway, the point is that when we part with people we have come to cherish, it's hard. Saying that word is hard.

We have lived in our current apartment for 2 and a half years now. Considering the transient nature of newlywed/college/young family life, that is a relatively long time. Within the past year I finally allowed the defensive walls surrounding my heart to come down a little. I gave a few people keys to the locks. It's hard to let people get to know you; to get to know the real you. Heartache is a part of life, and because of it, we build giant vaults around our feelings to protect what we find to be extremely precious. Our heart. Our inner soul. Our being. We protect who we are in order to avoid being hurt. To avoid being left behind; to avoid giving a part of ourselves to someone we know will eventually leave.

Past experience is usually our reasoning to the careful logic related to each delicately placed brick, cementing our core, blocking potential heartache. If we don't feel, then we can't get hurt. If we can't get hurt, then we don't need to fear anything. Or do we? Personally, I regret building those giant walls. I regret putting up so many barricades, and fences. Getting to know someone isn't meant to mimic entering a war zone.

As I mentioned, this past year I finally let a few people in. A few people that I now must say goodbye to. Only recently have I realized I should have opened my heart so much sooner. I shouldn't have been so proud of my metaphorical brick laying abilities. I shouldn't have been so guarded. An entire year was wasted because I was too afraid to let go of my defenses. I was too afraid to let someone know me. Too afraid to love, and be loved, in fear the love might go wasted. Wasted or not, we should live to love, not to stand in front of a gate with one key hoping no one ever comes asking us to open it.

Our guarded hearts need to become less hard. They need to become bigger. Take the space used for all those walls, and fences, and use it to allow the heart to grow more. To be scarred once or twice (or three, four, five, six, and on and on and on). To have pieces of it taken from time to time as those you love leave. Almost always, those who take pieces of your heart leave pieces of their own behind. Build your heart instead of guarding it, and soon you will come to realize what it has taken me too long to understand. Wasted are the moments spent in fear of what may or may not be. Make the time to try what can be, and eventually you will come to know there are rarely regrets in what is and what was; only in what might have been.