My rock

The last couple of days have found me focusing my attention on healing my heart.  It's not because I feel like I lost my chance at the greatest guy in the whole wide world, because that obviously could not be further from the truth.  It's because I fell for this guy pretty hard and pretty quickly, at a time when he was going through some very intense life challenges, and I reached out to help him because I am a sensitive person who doesn't want to leave someone alone during such a traumatic time.  And in that process, I ended up giving away too much of my heart to someone who didn't appreciate or respect it, and I found out that I had been used and taken advantage of.  That hurts.  The fact that I had such strong feelings for someone so selfish and immature and dishonest hurts.  The fact that he was pursuing someone else while I was reaching out to him and he didn't even have the courage to tell me really hurts.  The fact that I wanted the intense emotional connection we shared to continue, and yet he chose to sever it despite how much of my heart I gave him...that hurts.

But now, I have the benefit of finality and closure.  The story is over, and as I once read, "true love stories never have endings."  And now that I know what the ending looks like and I can take some time to heal and put it behind me, I am finding that it still works for me to listen to my heart as I pursue the things which bring me peace and happiness.  Today, what my hurting heart told me was that I needed to go to the beach.  The weather didn't seem great for it, and I didn't have very much time to spend there, but I knew, just knew, that I needed to go there today.

So while both of the kids were at school this afternoon, I took my dog and drove to the closest beach.  I started walking her along the shore and let myself relax into the calming surge of the waves across my feet and the sounds and smells of the ocean.  As I walked along, I felt the familiarity of hurt and loneliness swelling inside my heart; I have lived with those emotions for far too long, and they started to spill out of me in the form of tears, as they so often do.

And then, as I walked and thought and sought for that peaceful place within my soul, I suddenly spotted a rock lying in the sand, in the perfect shape of a heart.  That's it, up there in that picture.  On the sand, though, the shape of it was even more clearly defined, and I took a picture of it as I found it in the sand but I can't upload that picture from my mobile phone to my computer.  You'll just have to trust me, it looked even more perfect in the wet sand.  But instead of making me feel depressed or hurt, that little heart that I found gave me hope.  It was like a reminder that love is something that exists no matter where we are, or what we're doing, or how people choose to treat us.  Love is something that we can find when we least expect it, whether we are looking for it or not.  And one of my favorite songs was suddenly in my head as I stood and marveled at this perfect little heart that was left there for me to find when I needed it most.

I picked it up, then put it back down and walked away from it, thinking that it would be a good thing to leave for someone else.  But when I walked by again later and it was still there, I decided it was meant for me and I should keep it.  It is a reminder of what my heart can be when it heals again; not perfect, and not something that everyone will appreciate when they find it, but still strong and solid and just right for the person who comes across it at the right time, and wants to do the right thing to take care of it.

Broken hearts do heal with time; this much, I know.  And the sorrow that I feel right now over what seems like a loss will turn out to be a blessing to me in the end, because it will help refine me and strengthen me as a person and leave me more receptive to finding the love that was meant for me, when I'm ready to find it.