1.23.24 // My Heart

Sometimes my heart feels like a vacated home.
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It was vibrant and occupied at some point, but it’s hard to tell when someone last lived there.
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The beauty is undeniable even though exhaustion, neglect, and wear permeate the space dressed as peeling wallpaper, splintered hardwood floors, and a rusted kitchen sink.
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There are objects that others have left there, artifacts from past lives that sit neatly on shelves precariously displayed.
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The objects vary in size and shape. But they also vary in the thickness of dust that covers them. A baseball from the 2009 season is layered with such a robust coating of dust that the red lacing running in parallel from top to bottom is almost invisible. A less dusty object, a dark blue trucker hat with the words “Jacks” written in faded white, practically begs to tell its stories. A teardrop-cut emerald lined with diamonds and the words "You are so loved EF" sits in mocking beauty, dust collecting on it quickly as if to cover up the words that were etched but never true.
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Each object that decorates the shelves is a reminder that my heart was filled with laughter, tears, and love from others many times throughout the years. But each person who enjoyed a stay in my heart made an impact and left a mark. However, often those visitors who burst through the doors with promises of protecting their new home, renovating with new objects on the shelves, and new wallpaper on my artery walls, would not follow through on the sweet whispers of staying forever.
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Sometimes it would be a slow leaving process, the home of my heart becoming less hospitable, dust gathering again. Sometimes it would be abrupt, a traumatic leaving, as though the person who lived there took a baseball bat and smashed the fragile windows and ransacked the very home we had both built.
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So after each leaving when the halls that once held voices went silent, I would tend to my home, tend to my heart. I would fix her slowly, remembering what I liked it to look like, learning to fix parts of the place that felt off and wrong, and being more hesitant to open the door to another voice, another set of promises, another whisper of love wanting to find solace in my heart.
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But I'd always find myself opening the door again. Abandoning my heart in pursuit of trust and the potential that one day my heart could be cared for so completely that I wouldn't have to carry that burden around alone.
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But even I grew tired of the care of my own heart. With past comments of it being "too much upkeep" or my wanting to try various methods to meet the needs of my home donned as "I can't keep up with everything you're asking me to do."
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So, I decided to leave too.
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Sometimes my heart feels like a vacated home.
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It was vibrant and occupied at some point, but it’s hard to tell when I last lived there.