healing. huh.

My brother and I were talking today.

Don’t worry, there’s more to this story.

The truth is that we’ve both been going through it as of late. Unbelievably so, actually. And, well, we often compare notes. We take inventory of ourselves and then try to be pretty honest with each other in terms of how we’re doing, respectively.

It’s funny, there’s so much more than words when it comes to communicating. Because, you know, when I see my brother and we’re with his kids he’ll say in a pleasant, light-hearted tone, How are you doing? And I’ll answer in kind, and we’ll both be smiling knowingly while not really giving away anything at all.

But then if we step away for a moment, his voice will lower and he’ll look serious while he asks, How are you doing? and I’ll answer just as seriously. Unless, of course, I feel like making fun of life–which can be often, I admit–and in that case, I might mention that I received a “divorce present” from a kind soul and we’ll both laugh cause whoa, crazy. Absurd. Ridiculous. And yes, funny.

Kind of.

Fine. I don’t mind taking a sacred cow and making a few hamburgers, so yes, this…stuff…is funny sometimes.

Effing funny.

But anyway, we talk. And just today we were asking each other how healed each of us feels. And the thing about the healing of a broken heart is that it’s not exactly measurable. There’s no strength test for a heart. At least not one that is performed by a physical therapist. I suppose every day is some kind of strength test, but again, the results are intangible and somewhat inconclusive.

Perhaps they can be felt in peace and hope and joy and love but I like numbers too. I’m the kind of girl who’s a little religious when it comes to using a thermometer. I won’t acknowledge that I am sick unless I have a fever, unless I actually read those little numbers that tell me something is wrong.

And I don’t know of a thermometer for my heart.

It’s just interesting and confusing.

I want to be healthy; I know I’m probably a way off from that.

I want to run with all the other cool kids on the playground; I am broken and so probably won’t be running for some time.

I’ve never been good at being patient while I recuperated. Not when I was twelve and broke my foot and had to watch ballet class while all my friends got better and my casted leg just got skinnier. And not when I was in college and came down with mono and was supposed to “take it easy” while taking all my dance classes and well, “take it easy” and “dancing” aren’t anything that should ever go together.  So I’d get in trouble by my teachers over and over again because if I wasn’t kicking too high I was jumping too much and really, I’m a dancer. Sue me.

But anyway, this whole process of healing is weird and new and I’m not sure I understand it well at all and I wonder what it will look like to be all patched up inside again. I wonder what it will feel like and I wonder if maybe I won’t always have moments of sadness that steal my laughter right out of my mouth because suddenly, I remember what’s happened and can hardly believe it all over again.

Or maybe healing will look more like remembering but not feeling so sad. Because, instead, I will see something better than I could have imagined and I won’t even have to try to remember it because it will be all around me, the beautiful reality that I wake to and the last thought that whispers within me before I sleep at night.