To You, From Recovery

I guess I'm finally ready to write to you.

It's been two years since you let me know that you had cut me out of your life. Thinking about it now, I don't really know how my heart coped with that searing pain. I think of it as if it that raw flesh had an encounter with a branding iron. "SINGLE AFTER 6 YEARS", or "DAMAGED GOODS" are what come to mind as what I was marked with, but I'm probably being overly dramatic.

Everyone gets their heart broken at least once, right? Everyone grieves, and has those days when they can't get up and they can't go to work and they can't eat and they lie there, in whiteness, in soundlessness, and wonder how their heart will ever recover. And you, in your grief, after losing your father, no doubt experienced the same. And then your heart disappeared, and burrowed itself away. And mine? Well, it went into hibernation.

You see, our hearts had shared a beat once, and mine, without yours, hurt in my chest. Sometimes that chest-ache is felt right at the beginning, when you know you're falling for someone. Maybe you also felt the ache when you ended us. Maybe you didn't. I don't know. You were very far away, and even when you came on a plane to see me, I still didn't know what you felt.

These days, my heartbeat has had to self-regulate. It beats with no-one else's, stronger and more stable (strong and stable leadership is a thing these days, apparently), with a regular rhythm. It's not been won over, nor damaged, since it beat with yours, but instead I've been working on making that most important of all muscles more resilient; running, singing, surfing, driving in Central America. I've done so many things that scared me, to build up that heart until it felt Ox-like. It feels like it could take a beating, because, well, it did.

My heartbeat is stronger because of, and in spite of you. And all I have to say for that is: thank you.