“You have my heart in your teeth.”  I finished a book a couple of weeks ago with this sentence in it…the story was pages of letters, emails actually, exchanged between lovers in the chapters of this novel, with both characters making brave choices to move forward into a new relationship together and away from their spouses and families, and relative ease and comforts and normalcy of their lives.  Away from the familiar and towards the unknown…it was one of those sentences that made me stop and think about the words…  What does that mean?  I had read before about some of the descriptions of hell, that there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, neither of which appeals to me at all, but this sentence, it made me think of a lioness, how she so tenderly carries her babies in her jaw but minutes later can rip an antelope to shreds…same teeth, different desire…

When you first fall in love, or lust, or even simply make a connection where the chemistry feels right, particularly after a recent break up, there is a tenderness about you, so inexplicably gentle, that you wonder where all your anger and sadness or disappointment disappeared to?  You think about what you are about to do, or try, and ponder how you could be so brave to, yet again, put your heart in somebody’s teeth.  It’s a monumental decision, and yet with stars in our eyes and fiercely throbbing hearts, and often sweaty palms and pulsing private spaces, we hand it over…butterflies in our bellies, smiles that makes our toes tingle and our eyelids twitch, losing our words and losing our minds in a brain fog of wonderment…Here you go, we toss it, take my heart in your teeth…

People fall in love all the time everywhere. We see it in the pages of  US magazine, on Extra and Access Hollywood on television, we read it on google news, and couples-news often has its own “trending” space on social media,  and it looks so easy doesn’t it?  Even people we have seen go through public and seemingly humiliating break ups manage to wipe their tears and dust themselves off and try again.  People leave their wives and husbands or partners or the parent of their child and move on, trying to find a better fit perhaps?  What it means mostly is that they have decided to stop trying to make something fit that never will, with the hopes and dreams and excitement that this ‘new one’ will fit perfectly.  This could be wrong, but it’s my opinion…

I’ve come to accept that only in Cinderella was there a perfect fit.  Only a fairy tale can lead to happily ever after and a fit like no other.  I’ve grown old enough and lived enough now to know and accept and understand that life is messy, and often, not at all what you want to happen, happens.  I’ve grown to realize that no matter how comfortable it feels in the beginning, even when it’s as if you are walking on a cloud, after a while, sometimes a longer while than other times, you’ll get a blister.  I guess then comes the question; do you use a little Neosporin and a  Band-Aid or do you head right to Nordstrom and get new shoes?  When we feel so wanted and so wanting, we think it will never fade, but when we feel superfluous and bitter, we wonder, “how did THAT happen?”  “when did THAT happen?”  It’s one of the few things in life that I think is equal for both men and for women.  Men have their hearts ripped to bits just as often, and just as painfully, as women do.  We women might just express our sorrow with a bit more drama and fuss, and perhaps are less private about such matters, but men suffer crippling sadness as much and as often, of this I am sure.  We all do it all, to all.   They give a girl an inch and she demands a mile, they change-up all of their dreams to accommodate and appease her, and still end up lost and alone and feel used up.  We women can feel like we went from having our hearts in their teeth, to feeling that we’ve been torn to pieces and left in a heap of bones and gristle…I think for both sexes it becomes confusion and questions about how what (or who) you once wanted so badly, and made all these choices and changes for, is no longer what you enjoy and you are left utterly dissatisfied with the changes.  You wonder, ‘well, how did I get here from there?’ & is this going to ever feel better?  is it ever going to feel again like it did in the beginning?  Hope and desire are BIG feelings aren’t they?  You put all your eggs in one basket when you mix want and lust with hope and dreams.   It can be a beautiful recipe, or an epic Pinterest worthy fail.

There is weeping and gnashing of teeth in the hell that is the sorrow of a break up or an unhappy ending.  There are certainly feelings of failure, whether you were the instigator or the one tossed, I mean failure is failure is failure.  There seem to almost always be feelings of rueful despair, and so much self-doubt…what did I do?  did I do the right thing?  We can wring our hands night after night and wake up every day with stress and an upset stomach or we can just accept.  Accept things as they are, not contemplate whether things are good or bad, they just are what they are.  I suspect most of us have been in this exact predicament, & those of us who have not, well, lucky you!  BUT…much like a rainbow after a storm, as cliché as that might sound, there really is light at the end of dark tunnels,  there really can be happiness after grief, and new wishes after woe…it’s remarkable really, how resilient the human heart is.  How sad and aching we can be during a loss, a death of dreams or unfulfilled promises, is still a death, I mean loss is loss is loss, and yet how healed and excited we seem to feel, or think we are, when we stumble upon new emotions and new dreams, I mean love is love is love…you just have to be brave enough to put your heart in somebody’s teeth…