A Heart to Be Broken

There are so many things to be afraid of in this world. Love is not one of them.

Being in love, falling out of love, staying in love, loving to the tips of your toes and into the pits of the stomach and even the loss of love should not be something to be feared. Yet, there are so many of us who live inside this fear that we fail to live inside the reality of loving someone deeply. So instead, we do without. We don't dare give one hundred percent of our heart with the fear it will not be returned or it will be taken from us. And that is the truest tragedy-that we miss the most important parts of life worrying that they will not last.

I think we should be more afraid to become robots, to become self serving, to run into hiding as we try to avoid something as common as a heartache. What does this leave us with? Where do we get to in life? What do we obtain to block our feelings off as we wander on this journey? Sometimes, we get things. Sometimes, we have great accomplishments. Sometimes, we just wind up empty when we look around and notice that we stand in the spotlight alone and that the audience doesn't give a damn anyway.

In the end of our days, those who have reached out and been enflamed by love, engulfed by love or even burned by love, will never say, "I regret loving you, or him, or her, or them..." I just don't think anyone regrets it in the end. Those who are consumed by the regrets are those who didn't take the chance. Those who never allowed themselves to get to close to anyone, those who kept all at an arms distance, those are the people who wish in the end they had been braver and done things a bit differently.

Some wonder if people can die of a broken heart. I tend to wonder if we can die of one that has been atrophied from lack of use. I would rather, if either were an option, to have the former happen . At least I would know my heart had been active in my life, my emotions had been used well and often. I would much rather risk that broken heart than one dying from never allowing anyone to touch me too deeply.

We can't walk into loving someone with the thoughts of, "What if this ends? What if it's not forever?" We have to wander through it knowing instead that it is worth it to find out-no matter the outcome. We need to know that loving each other is most important, broken hearts are secondary and an unused heart is merely a waste of space. I am thankful. Though my heart may be a bit worse for wear, I am filling up every inch of it with loving and making sure not one spot is empty.

Monika M. Basile