Story of a Broken Heart

I find when I travel I get more time than usual to work on writing and my novel. So for those of you following the few snippets of "Way Beyond Perfection" that I am posting, here's a passage. I always love feedback, not just on the writing, but on the topic as well. Enjoy.


The trouble with the truth about a broken heart is that it hurts. It doesn’t just hurt when it gets broken, but it hurts when it heals. It hurts as the wound closes up. But that isn’t the right imagery at all. A broken heart is a muscle that has been torn and abused, and then paralyzed. There is no outside wound to look at, no way of seeing if it has healed properly or completely. But even after the injury occurs, it’s the new use of the damaged muscle that really hurts.
There is so much pain associated with the breaking of the heart. But the real pain comes when trying to use your heart again. Knowing when it is safe to use it again. The little practice tries of allowing small amounts of happiness and emotion in again. The desperate desires to feel something again, to be wanted, to be held. They are all contradicted by the terrorizing and paralyzing fear of pain and rejection again.
The more times the heart has been injured and broken, the harder it is to trust using it again.
How often do we hang our broken hearts out for others to see? How often do we were them on our sleeves, wanting another to see it, reach for it, take it? But when someone tries to reach out and touch it, we shut down, pull back, refuse to take the risk? We hold our hearts out there, waving it around, “look, I have a heart, it was broken, but it wants your attention!” But silently screaming on the inside, “Please don’t touch it too hard. Its known to go into spasms, contortions, and cause me horrible pain each time it starts to function again. Its not your fault, but I can’t let you get too close to it.”
The overwhelming desire to be loved, to feel again, to love another, to have someone to share all the little things and all the big things, and just to have someone to have. There are times when the need to have emotional contact with another can be so gripping and painful that it leaves you in tears. Especially when there is someone you want to let in, but the fear is still too paralyzing. Finding the ability to even be truthful and honest and open with someone you can only see wonderful things in. Or in other words, someone you may be tempted to trust and love, and therefore, someone who could hurt you.