Happier

A lot can happen in one year...

...the Earth rotates the sun.
...a Whale can have one baby from conception to birth.
...a rabbit can have 12 pregnancies.
...McDonald's sells 29 billion dollars worth of McDoubles.
...the heart beats 37,869,120 times...

This is what interests me tonight. The heart. It's an amazing little freak. It can feel so deep, yet it can be so shallow. It can be so easily exposed, yet it can shield itself like a fortress. It can keep beating even though it is broken. Exactly one year ago today, I went to bed crying, and tonight I laid my head down with tears in my eyes yet again. However, the tears are so incredibly different that even I am trying to understand them. A year ago, I was crying over love lost, a future made unsure, and an insult to lead to permanent injury. It is true what they say about heartbreak: your heart is literally broken. The body is made to heal though, and after crying for a bit, taking a heavy dose of NyQuil, and crawling into bed, by heart started healing. It was a slow and painful process, but I eventually decided that I was not doomed to a life of jilted love and cats, nor was my future a black hole, but it was back to open and minus hot weather. Suzanne Collins created a scene in Mockingjay where Finnick Odair says, "It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart." Oh, how true that quote is, but it may take ten times as long, but that does mean there is a definite end to that ten times. My ten times ended long ago. I remember counting one week; one week since it so quickly changed. Then two. Three. Four. Five. Six...I counted of awhile, but soon, I forgot to count, and soon I forgot to care, and soon I was okay. Just okay. It was long after putting myself back together that I discovered I could be far more happier than I ever had been in the past. Then I became better than okay, and better than I had ever been.

Tonight I lay down crying not because some freak luck that repeated the night's events of 365 days ago, but because I can't change things. I realized today that I wish I could take away pain and frustration. I wish I could heal . Let's go back to that insult/injury comment. That's why that past love didn't work. The wish to heal wasn't there. Oh, sure, the wish to ignore and make disappear was there, but not because of empathy or sympathy, but because it was a burden. I was a burden. Not anymore though, now, it's just another nightly routine-like washing your face, saying your prayers, or if you were Petunia Dudley from Harry Potter it would be wiping down the kitchen. Now, it's just "everybody gets something, but just because [I] know mine now doesn't mean it's bad. It just means I know sooner than most." Now, it isn't embarrassing or shameful; in fact, now it's no big deal-just another shot. Tonight I realized the difference a year can make. At the time, it hurt so deep, but I'm glad it happened. If it hadn't, I wouldn't be where I am today. I wouldn't be going to bed praying for another man's health instead of my own.