Vous maux, mon coeur.

As much as I think it way more productive and contributive to be a practical blogger, as I like to call it (in other words, a blogger that contributes to the world of blogging with some sort of practical insight or perspective on a certain area of discussion or topic – i.e. photography blogs, how-to blogs, music review blogs), I’ve come to realize, I have not much to impart onto an audience of readers. Which may be why I don’t have much of an audience to begin with. I like it this way. I find it makes it easier to write. Mostly just me and the keyboard, free of judgment and evaluation, with the sole purpose of self-fulfillment and nothing more. Is it madly cliché and pretentious to say that my favorite moments during the week are those when I’m quietly snuggled up with my friend, M.Word, and my own un-caged thoughts?

Today I want to talk about something that I know very little about, the human heart. The way I have come to view my own human heart is, I think, synonymous to how a parent would view their child, I presume. It is at times wayward and foolish, it has managed to dupe and betray me on multiple occasions, and sometimes, it is simply more of a burden than I can honestly, rightfully bear. Yet, on other occasions, it manages to surprise me with the unexplained bliss and unprovoked happiness I can experience through it, the way it keeps me alive, both literally and figuratively, and the way that I, my very nature and being, am identified by it. A love/hate relationship, I guess, as it sort of is with all things you grow extremely intimate with.

What I hate most, though, is when your own heart keeps secrets from you. Here is a little conversation I had today:

Heart: [[[[[ERUPTION]]]]]
Me: What? What is this? What’s going on???
Heart: …Oops
Me: …
Heart: Sorry
Me: Bastard.

There’s a scene in the broadway musical Wicked, where Elphaba, the main witch character, has an encounter with Fiyero, the gallant prince of Winkie County and the man she loves. Convinced that he could never love someone like her, she sings to herself not to let her heart wander, not to even begin desiring him, because she knows the reality all too well.

Don’t dream too far
Don’t lose sight of who you are
Don’t remember that rush of joy
He could be that boy
I’m not that girl

Every so often we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been
But that doesn’t soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in

Don’t wish, don’t start
Wishing only wounds the heart
I wasn’t born for the rose and pearl
There’s a girl I know
He loves her so
I’m not that girl…

Essentially, she suppresses what she feels for the sake of self-preservation, consciously lowering the level of expectation and hope, so as to endure a shorter and less damaging fall in the end. Isn’t this an all too common story of mankind?

And oftentimes, it can get to a point where you have repressed your heart’s message so much and so firmly that finally, you don’t hear it at all anymore. You’ve actually trained yourself with sheer vigilance and willpower to become deaf to your own self. This wouldn’t be so unfortunate, were it not for the fact that, just like how the longer you hold your breath underwater, the more explosive the need to surface and gasp for air, the deeper you smother a palpitating emotion, the greater the overflow when your heart decides to, for once, dismiss your direct order to shut the eff up.

It’s a silly cycle. The human heart is so elusive sometimes, yet so defiant and commanding. One day, I hope to come to a peaceful agreement with my own, but today, I’m busy cleaning up its mess. And quite frankly, I’m peeved and tired of its shenanigans.

Goodnight.