Breathing Again

I forgot how much writings gives me the ability to breathe again. For the longest time, I’ve felt like I lost my ability to write. I almost began to believe it. In fact I think I did for a while after my heart transplant. It’s almost as if I started believing that in giving up my own heart, giving up the piece of myself that made me – me, meant it would take a part of me with it and for a while there – it started to feel like that part was my writing. Because you see, after getting a new heart, it’s almost as if your “second life” starts. That’s how my brother always talked about his. There was your life before your new heart and life after. They were two separate lives. Two different realties.

but for a moment in time, I didn’t have a heart inside me…
there was the time between my two hearts,
where my old heart was out of my chest,
but the new one was not yet placed.
the sacred in between – where a machine was breathing for me
as I laid there on the table, unaware of who I would be.

Thoughts to my donor:
That time between feels sacred to you and me.
You left this earth,
while I was still on it,
lying on a table with my chest cut wide open,
waiting for a part of you
to save the part of me
that I needed more than anything
and for a brief moment,
our hearts were sitting next to each other,
one ready to give life,
and the other ready to take it away.

I’ve truly never thought about this until now. I’ve been feeling extra in tune with my heart and emotions lately. Not in a bad way at all, just in a “reality” check kind of way. In a “life is fleeting,” don’t forget what matters kind of way. It comes in waves. It’s not always like this. Not every day do I feel this way. Every time I sit down to write I don’t get these “downloads” so to speak. It’s not always like this, but today it is and I nearly forgot that I’m capable of experiencing it. It’s one of the main reasons I love writing so much and I forgot that. I almost forgot that this is kind of the entire point. I think about my donor every single day. How could I not? Somedays it’s a small thought others it’s an overwhelming feeling of emotions and wishing I could meet them and hating that life is this way. It doesn’t ever get easier, but I do get more and more curious about them.

**Before you ask, no I don’t know anything about them. For now, keeping it that way feels best for me, who knows in the future if that will change.

Anyway, I really did think that I lost my way with my writing, but if there’s one thing I know for sure it’s that if you’re meant to do something, if it’s your “calling,” it won’t stop calling. You can’t escape it as much as you might want to, you can try your best to outrun it, ignore it, replace it, etc…but at the end of the day, if it’s something in you that you love and it breaks your heart – chances are it won’t leave you alone. While my life has thrown me so many curveballs and unknowns and broken hearted seasons….it also has shown me how much writing matters to me in this life and how much it truly helps me get through it.

I was stuck for years in the overstimulating, fast pace, loud world of social media and my love for writing got lost in all of it. I can see now that my back and forth tendencies to “be on” social media and then “disappear” was never about me not being able to write, it simply was my nervous system not being able to tolerate social media. It truly was that simple. I use to think something was really wrong with me. Why couldn’t I keep up with everyone else? Why could this person who has been through “xyz” be able to continue to share about their life and help people, while I’m over here barely able to get through the day let alone share it constantly on social media. I compared myself a lot to people who 1. I truly didn’t know what was actually going on behind the scenes and 2. were probably hiding a lot more than they led on. And the thing about me is that if it’s not honest and truthful, I don’t care to be apart of it, almost to a fault maybe? I don’t know. I think I just have a very good filter for BS and it’s my least favorite thing when I would be on social media and sense a lot of people pretending. To be fair, I do see a lot of people bearing their souls and being real, however I can’t help but wonder – how is that sustainable? how are you really? are you doing it for attention? when is too much too much? etc. You get the point.

Clearly, I just have a really hard time with it and I feel like I can honestly ask these questions because I’ve been in both positions. I’ve put on a front, I’ve beared my soul, I’ve wanted attention, I’ve wanted to actually help people. I enjoy sharing parts of my life. I was so sick of sharing my life. This blog though, for the first time in so long feels the safest place to be, so thank you for being here if you’ve read this far because honestly this post is all over the place. Not even sure what category this falls under, lol.

I guess all this to say, I’m getting back to me – with my new heart and that doesn’t mean I lost my ability to write – it just means I needed to find my way back to it in a way that allowed me to breathe again. I hope you’ll do more of that in your life, find the spaces and things to do that make it easy to breathe, that make you feel so much peace you can barely stand it because it feels so good and right and true to YOU.

Ok bye…I love you!!
(But Jesus does even more.)