half-hearted.

I've been thinking a lot about the heart. We use it to describe so many things that are so important to us. It's responsible for keeping us alive and sometimes it feels like it's killing us.
I have a nephew who was born with only half of his. With that half, he has brought more fear, hope, tears, laughter and joy into my life than anyone ever will.
After about a four year break, we're preparing for his third heart surgery in the coming months. Something that has been looming at us as soon as the first two were far enough in the past. Since then we've gotten to meet this ferocious, larger than life child that sometimes just has to catch his breath to keep going. He has surpassed all dreams and suppressed almost all of our fears.
Until we finally got to see his heart a few weeks ago.
The pictures of it just weren't what we thought. He has complications we never really saw coming. It was a blow we hadn't braced for.
Only, I did. I had to. I watched as my sister took in the news, only slightly losing a bit of her posture and some of the color from her face. She stayed engaged and curious and I just watched everyone. The surgeons face as he explained the issues. Each person on the team behind him as their eyes darted to my sister to see how she was accepting what she just heard. Only using their eyes to really understand what I was hearing and not allowing myself for one second to show it.
After the room cleared, we cleared it. Packing up my nephew maybe a little bit more carefully than we would've before. They drove off to Louisiana, I drove to my side of town.
Just like before with his diagnosis I could not allow myself to be anything but positive even though no one was looking. I remember weeping in my bed at the news of what was to come. Knowing just how much I already loved my other nephew and not knowing if I would be able to bear the weight of what could come if I lost the second one. But, only to myself, never to my sister. I comforted myself by focusing on images of my nephews playing and growing and living life just as they should and I have been given a gift of seeing it all come true. Better than I dreamed.
The scary days in-between his birth and the recovery from his first two heart surgeries seem like they never even happened. The only reminder that his heart isn't as big as it should be come when he gives himself a quick time out or you notice that his lips, fingers and toes are just a little bit blue. They all can quickly be overlooked. The scar has faded.
I had forgotten until I couldn't anymore.
Aiden's story gets told as a story of hope and a couple weeks ago, a friend let me know she had heard it and she was thinking about us. I went back and relived his story through the pictures and facts of what all had happened and I came unglued.
The flood gates opened and there was no way for me to recover. All of the fear coming back, but now knowing what his face looks like, what his smile looks like, what his heartbeat feels like, what his laugh sounds like and debilitated by the fear that there could come a day I won't be able to see, hear or feel any of that.
My eyes were swollen. My chest was tight. My jaw was locked. My heart was broken.
I let it all just come out of me. Only to myself until my sister called and she knew better.
It was a release I had locked up so tightly and buried that I didn't realize until the knot came loose that I had numbed myself to life. I couldn't feel anything because I was putting everything into not feeling that. Protecting myself from it. Preventing myself from feeling it. Clinging on to hope so tightly my knuckles were white. I couldn't do it anymore and I shouldn't.
I let it all just come out of me. Only to myself until my sister called and she knew better.
She told me while his surgeon does know the anatomy of his heart, he doesn't know the spirit of it. The heart is so much bigger than its chambers, even if it's missing some. It's function keeps us alive, but it is also the innermost part of who we are. Both are what keeps us living and makes it worth taking that next breath.
Life sits on the cliff of fear and hope. It's constantly just teetering on the edge. Our hearts skip a beat no matter if we're overwhelmed or overjoyed. It keeps us fighting for more and sometimes holds us back from falling. It keeps beating and we keep going, and so will Aiden.
I can see it now.

mirrors.

There's been a lot of different versions of myself in the last three decades. There's been my best ones, my future ones, the not-so-good ones and the fuck, I hate myself ones. I've had to own them all. Eventally.
I've seen some new versions of myself through people in my life. I can’t say they’ve been the most flattering. I’ve tried looking at myself at a different angle or with different lighting or while sucking in, but I can’t unsee it and I guess I’m going to have to own her, too.
I seem to have forgotten that the people who have been around the longest saw the best version and know she’s still in there. Somewhere. And, that’s why they stick around. Waiting?
I’ve recently seen that maybe that patience is wearing thin and for good reason. How many times can we have the same conversations? How many times can they continue to be supportive as they see me repeat the same mistakes over and over and over? How much longer do they have to wait for their girl to come back? I don’t have the answers. Yet. But, I see it.
I also failed to realize that people who are getting to know me now don’t know that version. She hasn’t been around. I assume they still see the same things, but I’ve actually neglected to show them. I wonder if they think I’m full of shit when I talk about the things that I say matter to me, but they’ve never really seen the proof. I see that now, too.
I can look at myself in the same mirror I’ve taken around with me for the last 15 years and be ok enough with it to confidently step out thinking I know what I saw, but then I catch glimpses of myself in other ones and lie to myself that that one just isn’t right.
I was so sure that I’m a very self-aware person, but I saw myself for the first time in a long time a week ago and I can’t look away. And, I shouldn’t.
I’ve blamed so many other people or things for the way things have turned out, it’s been so startling to see that it was me that made it all happen. It’s me that lets it happen. It’s me sending the mixed singnals or not telling the whole truth or trying to make sure everyone as comfortable as I try to squeeze into whatever space they’ve left room for me. I’ve gotten so comfortable with being uncomfortable I didn’t even feel it anymore. I do now.
I’ve noticed all of the transformations and versions of the people closest to me for a long time now. They’ve had their best and worst, too. I probably wasn’t the most flattering mirror for them.
I swell up with pride that I’ve been given the opportunity to see them all. Now I catch glimpses of wrinkles settling in or grey hairs shining through. In the right light and at the right angle I see all of the things that put them there and all of the hopes I have for what’s to come for them as the signs of years lived continue to reveal themselves.
The other day as I was standing in front of my mirror preparing myself to face the world, someone made me laugh and smile and I caught a glimpse of it. What actual joy looks like on me now. Not the smile you stretch across your face when you’re told to. And, for the first time I saw the wrinkles that shoot out of my eyes when I really mean it and I was so proud of them. So happy to meet them. So grateful for the things that have happened to put them there. All the versions hidden in the corners of my eyes.
I see it now. I get it. I want to be more of her.

help i'm alive.

I don’t like scary movies. The thrill never finds me. I’m sitting there with popcorn in my lap fighting an anxiety attack and dreading the nightmares that will appear as soon as my eyes are closed for long enough as I’m holding my breath and clinching my body so I don’t jump when someone or something appears out of nowhere. So, I don’t watch them.

In my real life, I can conjure up plenty of scary stories of my own without even closing my eyes. Paranoid as I’m walking to my car at night (probably not entirely a bad thing). Being as still as I can in bed as I hear a sound on the other end of the house. Basically keep a running list of worst-case scenarios going at all times, sometimes breathing through a potential anxiety attack  and clinching my body to not be detected if something or someone appears out of nowhere. 

Paralyzed by the potential of something happening. Anything. And, how I will handle it.

A few days ago my defenses were dulled by a few too many drinks and I found myself cornered. Drilled by an endless onslaught of questions with no direct line connecting them and having to explain myself all while dark, brooding tones hummed in the background. I sank lower and lower into the couch that was my only hiding spot to not be seen and to try to not be heard.

I’m still not sure what was trying to be uncovered, but I’ve also never felt more seen when the interrogator relented momentarily by saying “So, you’re afraid of what you want the most.”

Fuck.

The air got sucked right out of me.

I spend so much time fearing the future and holding my breath in the present that I’m not actually making any movements, much less sudden ones. Paralyzed by an ever-growing list of imaginary “what-ifs” that actually would never even come close to killing me. 

I’ve stopped even imagining what the future would look like because I’m so scared of what won’t be there. I’ve started to make those things that I used to push so hard for secrets that I bury and fear anyone finding.

I stopped asking the questions I was scared of the answers to.I stopped putting myself in situations I wasn’t sure of the escape route. I’d gotten pretty good at making myself undetectable. 

And then, someone started digging.

I slipped up. I did all of those things. I’ve been found out. But, I’m still alive and maybe more so?

There’s really nowhere left to hide, and for the first time in a long time, I don't really see the point in it anyway. The thrills weren’t finding me.

There’s nothing scarier than doing nothing.I buried myself alive to prevent something else from killing me while allowing this overwhelming fear of failure or rejection or transparency or just being uncomfortable actually kill me.

What a plot twist.

There could be a cloud of dust following me as I walk my haggard ass out of this graveyard and step over the graves of all of the other bullshit I buried there. I’ll still be a little jumpy. I’ll definitely look over my shoulder a few too many times. Hold my breath as I wait for something to materialize. But, I’m not afraid anymore.