Where is my heart?

My husband is gone for the first time in 3 months of marriage. He is in Dallas, Texas doing training for work. This has forced me to rub shoulders w/ my past self. The me that was single. Not a better, me, but a different me.

It has brought me back to the places before Owen. And today, my heart feels like I left it somewhere back there.


Did I leave it back on one of those birthdays? The ones where I thought if I blew the candles hard enough and wished even harder I could believe that very wish into existence? Or is it back on the night before Christmas when I knew Santa wasn't real, but peeked all night long, just in case he was.

Maybe I left my heart in the laughter between my mom and me, when her bed was just across the hall from mine. Or is it in the hands of my dad as he curled my hair before church?


Maybe it's still stuck on the day we found out we would never see my cousin on this earth again. Our sobs a song drowned out by our tears.

My heart could still be computing the idea that there would be a new Hanchinamani in 9 months. And we'll call it Inji until we know any better.


Or is it somewhere at Brookside. In the lyrics of a one republic song on repeat, during our 15th round of playing 'Pop', while debating predestination for the hundredth time?

It could be at the foot of the cross. The day I realized the King of the Universe was for me, not against.

Did I leave my heart on the cobblestone streets of London, on a stroll with my best friend? Or while I was dangling my feet over the Seine River in Paris, drinking a glass of sparkling wine, talking of life, love and loss with friends I had just met? Or is it on the beach of Barcelona, where I bought a coconut from a sketchy man looking for a quick buck? Maybe I left it at St. Peter's in Rome, right in front of the Pieta of Mary cradling a dying Jesus. Or was it left at the grounds of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, where the rainbow hung above it, as if painted by an artist who was declaring His love for me .

 

Or is it at my internship site, left with the 6 year old who put on a brave face for his defeated mother. While the doctor's cleaned his wound after heart surgery.

Maybe I left it on my mission's trip. With the little girl at the orphanage who couldn't smile at adults because every adult in her life reminded her of pain. Or maybe it's on the campus with the little girls who played with my hair and hung on my neck and tickled me, just so that they could laugh.

Or maybe I left my heart in the apartment I shared with my best friends. Maybe it got stuck somewhere on a cold winter's night, when we were all huddled under blankets talking of who we would marry and where we would live and if our kids would all be friends someday.


No. Tonight my heart is somewhere it's never been. It's warm and cozy and safe.



In Dallas, Texas.