Setting My Heart Free

I've avoided writing this entry because it hurts. After almost a week of resisting, I'm finally ready.

After I came home from my trip, I went over to Blake's parents house on Monday night to catch up. While we were talking, his mom gave me some upsetting news. She told me that when she stopped by the cemetery the other day, she noticed that the heart I glued onto his headstone was no longer there. She looked all around trying to find it, but it was gone.

My first instinct was to blame someone. Maybe that person got sick of seeing my heart there, so she finally took it off herself. It was affixed with super-glue, how else could it have come off? I figured that the wind and rain couldn't have removed it without the help of a vindictive hand.

But Blake's mom insisted that it was probably the weather, or maybe the grounds keeper. The heart that was originally so vibrantly blue had been fading and fading for months. When I saw it two weeks ago, it had been reduced to a shabby clear scrap. Maybe the grounds keeper thought it was an insignificant piece of glass and got rid of it. Maybe the glue had worn off and finally let go.

Two days later I got up the courage to go see it. I had collected a bunch of shells at a beach in Uruguay and I wanted to put them there before going back to San Diego. I walked slowly up to his plot, holding my breath harder with each step. Don't cry. Don't get angry. Don't be afraid.

It was gone.

I cried. I got angry. I was afraid.

What did this mean? Was it really the weather? The grounds keeper? Her? After a few minutes of being sad/mad/scared, I realized that what specifically happened to the heart doesn't matter. What matters is that it wasn't there anymore. What matters is making sense of that fact and moving forward.

In a way, although this was hard to admit to myself, it felt like my heart no longer being there symbolized it being set free. But being "set free" didn't mean not loving Blake, or forgetting him, it just meant giving myself permission to have my heart back. To nurture it on my own, or maybe to give it to someone else.

I love Blake, and always will, but I finally feel like I'm prepared to be a whole person again. I believe that the heart no longer being there reflects that. I am a little bit sad, angry, and scared, but I'm ready.