Hearts

"I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy.

 If you only knew it, you

are in luck not to have a heart."

L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Photo courtesy of free-extras.com

I don't particularly like The Wizard of Oz.  In all seriousness, I dislike most of both the book and the movie.  I never liked it.  Something about it disturbs me.  Perhaps it's the truth that underlays all the silliness, the profundity of the most ridiculous characters.  

The above quote touches some deeply buried piece of my soul today.   I am not a hopeless romantic.  Far from it, actually.  I've been called the anti-romantic.  It isn't that I don't like romance.  That's not it at all.  The over-the-top actions of men in chick flicks always give me warm fuzzies.  But they also make me suspicious. 

I don't trust romance.  It's not real.  There must be an ulterior motive behind such lavish acts and sugary words.   Those movies lie.  

No one would ever do any of those crazy things. Like in "10 Things I Hate About You" when Heath Ledger's character sings to Kat on the bleachers in front of a huge audience--yeah right.  No guy would ever willingly make that big a fool of himself.  Or in "Dirty Dancing" when Johnny shows up and dances with Baby at the end--yeah, that would totally never happen.  

I think most matters of the heart are more likely to follow the plot of "Casablanca."  Ilsa and Rick fall in love and hurt each other years before the plot picks up and then Ilsa shows up in Casablanca at Rick's night club where they proceed to love and hurt each other some more, and finally at the very end there is no happily ever after:  Ilsa leaves and Rick stays and no one is happy.  Now that's real.  That's life.  That's what happens.

I know that sounds cynical, but I prefer to call it realistic, and in my current state it seems more than fitting.  I think we hurt ourselves.  

We break our own hearts by not being careful with whom we allow to hold them.  Sometimes we break them by trying to keep them from getting broken. 

Sometimes we try to trust and let go but our brains won't let us because our brains know better.  

Perhaps I just need to process things today.  I need to process my life and what it is and what it will become. I need time to think and feel and understand. I need plans and order and some kind of reassurance from the universe that I haven't lost my bloody mind.  That's what I need today.  

Do you ever feel that way? Have you ever felt that way?  Do you think I'm just completely cynical and damaged now?  Or do you suspect I might be realistic and honest?  Food for thought.