I owe it to my heart.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” - CS Lewis

" If you lock your heart away either from the beginning or as a reaction to the pain obtained after giving part of it away it will slowly rot. Sure you will spare yourself the sting of more pain but you will never know the joy that comes with loving. The longer it is locked up the more it will rot and the weaker it will become until it is good for nothing and because of it's weakness it will be even more susceptible to pain than it ever was. Making it harder to give away. Oh yeah one more thing. The author is using words like casket, coffin, airless, and irredeemable to signify death.
Indicating that in trying to protect your heart you are essentially preventing it from being broken by killing it yourself."

The first thing is a quote which was on my friends notes on facebook. The comment below is a comment that someone wrote on his page. It REALLY struck me. I've been living by this theory that by keeping my heart locked away, I would be able to stubbornly create a kind of bliss to which I only have to adhere to my own rules. Not just blocking out love for a man, but for most of humankind. Oh, I love, but I don't really love. I love safely, if there's such a thing. I love for convenience. I love to stay distanced, but make them feel close. I keep my heart protected. Lately I've discovered that this isn't really what I want, but it's a hard thing to change.

When it says that the longer you keep your heart locked away, that it rots, it's not kidding. Lately it seems like a life of loss. Some for the good, some surprising, but loss nonetheless. The more it happens the less I seem to care. I've felt my heart becoming cold. I found that I LOVE distance. That being alone isn't really so lonely because it's easier than creating real relationships. Oh yes, talking to people is great, but to keep them at a distance from my heart is the safest way to go about things.

However now I have reason to not want it to be locked away. I want real relationships with people. I think I owe it to my heart to love. Lately I've been realizing more and more that life is short, and what else do we have if not love?

I once said that I wanted to live my life in beautiful colours. What could possibly be more beautiful in colours than love? The patterns of the heart I believe were meant to love. John Lennon once said that all we need is love. There would be less war if there was more love. Love starts within people, why when I have been so fortunate, have I been incapable of loving? Being stubborn only goes so far. I take some things as challenges and I'm usually determined to win. One of those challenges has been to see how blocked off I could stay. What is the real point of keeping my heart from people? My heart is mine to offer. It's an emotional part, the part which doesn't need to make sense to be meaningful.

Lately I discovered I don't want to live with just my heart. I want to give it away and discover that piece of myself. I want the radiating colours. I never realized it before but I have a fear of really loving.. incredible. When yet my whole belief process seems to have been built on the premise of love, I found myself incapable. I was wondering why I would look at others and become envious of their freedom to love. I think I can link my fear.

Love is uncertain. It DOES hurt when things go badly, and it's that fear of things going badly which prevents me from being able to really love. I have a ridiculous fear of the unknown. This is a sheer definition of love. Walking into love is like walking into an unlit room. I'm afraid of the dark, but sometimes the room you go into will have a light at the end. Sometimes if I know that there is a chance that the room will stay dark then I won't go for it. My goodness I'm semi-pathetic. My whole life is run on fear! I like things to be stable, I like to feel that things are stable. Relationships can be uncertain, but I guess that if one is unstable how can a relationship be stable?

By sacrificing my heart I feel I will gain so much. I think I will be more free. Loving a man will bring beauty unforeseeable. To allow him to touch my heart could quite possibly bring a oneness that I wouldn't have otherwise.

THIS is why I want to change. I don't want to run my life by fear any longer. Loss happens, but so does love. I want moments that I will never forget. My heart wants me to relax, and allow natural courses to happen. Love is a natural course. Honestly I look forward to discovering it's full affects. I look forward to love, and to not letting my heart rot anymore.

Youch. I didn't imagine that a note would provoke this much emotion within me.

Here's a song which I find fits.