"The heart has its own wisdom and intelligence. It has the different voice from the voice in your mind. It also has the way of manifesting what it is your calling in life."
There are times that I ponder about what the other representation of my heart would be like. Of course, I remember my Science teacher showing our class how a human's heart would look like with the valves and blood circulating — usually illustrated in blue and red colors in textbooks. But I am talking about a different kind of heart we all have, and I'd say it's figuratively unique.
I visualize this heart as being shaped by our values, personalities, experiences, pains, desires, and stories. I can also imagine our hearts having different colors, depending on our primary emotions. Another idea that hit me is that maybe every person's figurative representation of heart comes in different shapes, too. Why not? We're painting its image away from the literal interpretation.
h e a r t a c h e s
I believe that every child born in this world has the same size and color of each heart's figurative representation. Being born with purity and innocence, despite their small bodies, their hearts start as big and bright-colored. But as part of growing up and having continuous exposure in the worldly things, a child's heart could possibly change. A heart is good at remembering especially when it is a person's either "first" or "great", and these will definitely have roles in shaping his or her heart.
I have had my heart aches. We all had. The first time I experienced it, although it’s not vivid anymore, I think my heart’s first phase in changing was to shrink. I don’t know. I can tell that I was already foolish way back in my innocent days. It was then followed by series of events that made more changes in my heart’s representation.
My heart was torn; it felt like it was sliced into halves. My heart was in deep shock; it didn’t know for a second how to resume in beating. My heart got stabbed; it was even more painful to remove the knives by myself. My heart was once shattered into pieces; it took time for all of it to get reformed. And my heart was also held by someone dear to me; it was just unexpected to see it falling from the high.
It was always hard to breathe in every phase of changing.
With these kinds of heart ache I experienced, I felt my heart being carved for multiple times by the weapons used to hurt me — intentional or not. For me, I still couldn't recognize the image of it.
h e a r t b e a t s
What is it that my heart still desires? Ano ba ang tinitibok nito?
Even though I had my heart aches, my heart did not stop beating. It did not stop knowing the beauty and definition of love, may it be in its most complicated form. It did not stop exploring to seek for its growth. It did not stop dreaming every day and night.
The heart aches may be the flats and sharps to the rhythm of my heart's song, but it did not stop from singing.
The reason: My love in the arts helped me to heal myself. With music, I can dance my gratitude and exploration; with theater, I can process my thoughts; and with narratives, I can express my emotions.
As I was about to turn my page as a teenager to the next page of young adulthood, I learned that it is not always the painful experiences that I should look at. I can actually choose what will positively change me. I can still have control in digesting healthy thoughts that can be transmitted to my heart for better circulation of emotions. There will always be the best memories and lessons that I should treasure in my heart. These are what make my heart whole. At the present, these also take the major role in shaping my heart —thanks to my passion in the arts.
Now, my heart is beating for my ideal life journey as an artist. Besides being a theater actress, I also want to be an artist who travels, immerses, and does cultural works, but I know that it will be a long, challenging road for me to take. I aim to be the person with a heart that yearns for more stories to hear, more beauty to see, more adventures to walk, more wisdom to taste, and more lessons to speak.
I actually have a lot of dreams as an artist. Maybe that is what's both good and challenging for a spontaneity lover.
Now that I am in the process of healing, how do I picture my healing heart?
It does not concern me if the idea or concept is quite popular, but this is how I truly see my heart's figurative representation. With the stories I have listened to, I have also had my heart planted with seeds (of wisdom) and watered them every now and then until they bloom beautifully. The roots are also visible because I want my heart, body, mind, and soul to stay grounded and grow deeper. My heart is also currently working in harmonizing the flowers' different colors because I simply embrace the beauty in diversity.
Its healing process is also guided by my spirit animal — a butterfly.
My heart's healing process takes time and effort, but it's okay. A slow progress in healing is still a progress. I will also listen to the music of my heartbeat to keep myself on the track in aiming my dreams one at a time. I am grateful to finally make this healing to the next step as I write these words from my heart. At this moment, I feel like I am getting closer to the kind of person I aim to be.
And this is my heart's story.
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