Melting

Being in a relationship is teaching me interesting things about my heart, my pain, my healing. I have written before about how intense emotions affect me physically. When I have a messy breakup, the whole world becomes gray. Food turns to ash in my mouth, my chest hurts, my eyes sting, and it's hard to breathe. All those things that songwriters tell us... they are true. I didn't realize that those people were being literal.

I'm now in what I call the "sickeningly happy" stage of my relationship (seriously, how are the people around me not vomiting every time I talk?!). This is the infatuation phase. It makes me want to stand on a roof and scream "EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL!!!" And for me, this stage also has its physical effects. Whereas I would normally look in the mirror and say something to the effect of "yech," now I smile and am surprised at how clear my skin is. How bright my eyes are. I have tons of energy. I want to jump around and dance and spin and run into things, not even caring that I look like an idiot.

And my lungs feel like they're going to explode. My heart is going to jump out of my chest. My hands are shaking. Whenever we're together, I am just one skipped heartbeat away from passing out. Sometimes I forget to breathe. My knees start to buckle when he kisses my cheek, and I have to concentrate on standing.

I know this is all normal, but it's exhausting! This being happy all the time takes a lot of energy. I've started taking naps in the afternoon, which I have never done before. And it's only been a month. I know that all this infatuation is going to wane, that we will reach a comfortable stage, but I don't want it to! For all the exhaustion, I LOVE feeling this way!

And it's made me think about the condition of my heart.

I think it's called a "heartbreak" for a good reason. When you give your heart away and it's rejected, thrown back at you, it breaks into pieces. It takes time to heal, and healing produces scar tissue. The thing about scar tissue is that it's harder than the natural tissue, less likely to break, but doesn't function as well as the natural tissue.

When you're freshly infatuated (or whatever word you want to use), the poets describe the heart "melting". Which works. Because before, I felt like all I had to give was crumbs-- pieces of a formerly broken heart. But with new affection comes a melting-- the crumbs liquefy and become one. So that as the heart at first is held over the flame of infatuation, it becomes whole again. And as the infatuation wanes, the heart cools, reforms, and becomes capable of loving again.

So this infatuation stage is necessary! It's part of healing! It makes us capable of loving more thoroughly, more deeply.

And when that happens, I will have a new heart, a whole heart, to give, instead of broken crumbs.