“Open your heart.”
It seems like Nicholas Sparks probably penned this into his latest novel. I’m sure it was accented by hand brushing, face flushing, arms touching kind of details. While the dizzying romance played out in these books sounds enticing, magical even, wrapped around my heart winds the barb wired fence of a skeptic.
Open your heart?
Life is not a romance novel. Opening my heart is too dangerous.
After all, opening my heart means pain. It means vulnerability, the possibility of being wrong or naive. Opening my heart means making a choice that I alone may have to face the repercussions of.
I ponder this in my mind with all the recent happenings in my life. See, my heart has been presented with two options:
Open my heart, or cut the cord and run.
Open my heart and face possible rejection, or do the rejecting.
Which choice do you think is the easiest option here?
After my brother suffered a near death health scare last December, my life stumbled into focus for what felt like the first time. Suddenly, what seemed so important to me at the time now paled in comparison to my core values.
I realized I had a lot of work to do within myself. I realized the person I was currently becoming, was not who I wanted to be. I needed to be more. I wanted to be honest, genuine, kind, giving, confident.. and I wanted to be brave.
So while everything pulls me towards running, at my very core, I know what I want to do. I do not want to run. I want to be brave.
I keep finding myself doing this, taking these seemingly crazy steps towards being a braver version of myself. Even this trip is a step I never would have taken in the past. This trip signifies me opening my heart, a metaphor for opening myself to possible rejection and heartache. It has terrified me, and tomorrow still looms over me with the cloud of uncertainty.
Yet I find myself persisting.
Have courage. Be brave.
Aurelia Krane 