Sarah's heart

This story comes from a conversation with someone today. I never realized how painful it could be to talk with someone I loved so much.

The waves of the icy ocean mirrored the pain in Sarah’s heart. Each wave was different, but each one was the same. It was a sad realization that her heart had grown hard. Her heart held nothing but herself. There was no room for others.

Her heart had been broken, used and torn asunder. She tried to salvage the love she had in it, but the love was gone. She lied to herself for so long she almost believed she could love, but she knew she would not.

All the love she had shared, the kindness, the unconditional giving to another had played out to a dead end. There was no way to rekindle the flame. The fire had been quenched.

She was broken.

Sarah had loved with all her soul and all she had for 27 years of her 50 years. There was nothing she would not have done for him, no sacrifice too great.

But he could not fulfill that which she wanted.

She could not continue loving a man she no longer loved.

She could no longer pretend every morning and pretend every night.

She had no fear of leaving.

Her heart had no love for him.

As his tears fell, her feet stepped into a new life.

She stood alone without him for the first time in 27 years.

And her heart was beat a gentle rhythm that no one else would be allowed to ever hear.

Sarah’s love of her children, two daughters of beauty, was without question and without bounds, but they had moved on in their lives, with loves of their own. She loved them and shared with them, but inside, she knew her heart for another was cold.

In the years since she’d stepped off into the night, divorcing him by proxy so as not to have to face the destruction she’d wrought, she had walked through the days with the cold held inside.

The smile she showed to others, the kindness she bestowed, the words of warmth, hid the heart that had been silenced in its voice.

Walls were constructed around her heart.

Strong walls.

Impenetrable walls.

And it did not matter to her.

She liked her walls.

She cherished her walls.

She used the walls as a weapon.

It did not matter to her who got hurt.

Her heart was cold.

Her heart was what mattered.

Herself is all she had to depend on.

Herself was all she would depend on.

The hurt of others was not something with which she concerned herself. She did not need to be concerned with their feelings. She had built walls around her heart so no one ever got close enough for her to care about their feelings. She had found that by not caring about someone else, she did not have to care or fret or worry or think about their feelings.

The men from her life, first Steven, then Tom, then Lou all loved Sarah. They gave to her all they hoped she wanted. They offered honesty and love, kindness and fidelity. There was comfort in them and she accepted it without giving too much, without giving her heart. As each one fell under the emptiness of her love, she turned and walked away.

Sarah did not care how they were hurt.

They were them.

She was Sarah.

Sarah’s heart never hurt.

Sarah’s heart never healed.

Sarah’s love was never real.