Disclaimer: This one is simultaneously nerdy and somewhat pathetic. I will write something peppy soon. I promise.
I admit I’m a Harry Potter fan. I went to the midnight party at Borders (Barnes and Noble was far better, though. They had a streaker) but I digress…I’m a big fan. I like to see good and evil battle so blatantly. I enjoy seeing the wars most of us fight internally personified by those too young to understand the concessions most of us make in adulthood. If you haven’t finished the series yet and intend to, you may wish to stop reading here because I want to talk about one of the subplots.
According to the JKR Lexicon (I am such a proud nerd!!!):
The term "Horcrux" is used to refer to any object in which a person has concealed a part of his or her soul. The object need not be inanimate;, a living creature can be used as a Horcrux, although it is risky to do so since the Horcrux in such a case is something that can move and think for itself, independently of the implanted fragment of soul.
The purpose of a Horcrux is to protect the given bit of soul from anything that might happen to the body of the person to whom the soul belongs. While the Horcrux is kept safe, the person will continue to exist even if his or her body is damaged or destroyed.
In the books, the evil villain split his soul into seven horcruxes and it left him much much weaker. This image has oh so many applications- children, jobs, objects, passions, pretty much anywhere you break off a piece of your soul and store it. Since I think that I may have just been dumped by the third great mortal love of my life (one of those "it's not you, it's me" "I love you but just need to get myself ready for you" things that are almost always lies), I’m going to rant about the soul splitting of love.
I guess that some people meet and marry the love of their lives at a young age and never know what it’s like to lob off a piece of yourself that will always live with someone not present. I’m not one of them. I’ve dated several hundred men, and am currently haunted by three mortal heartkeepers (God’s there too, but I’ve got enough to say as is). first: my father (I’m with Freud and Sylvia Plath on this one. Daddy is always the first great love and often, as in my case, heartbreak). Second: My first real deep love, Third: My most recent heartbreak. I’ve broken up with many, but I think I know which ones have burrowed in deep enough to really torturously stick; I think that this one just might have. Now I’m just left wondering about numbers.
Cats have nine lives; Voldemort got seven horcruxes; how many horcruxes of the heart are available before there just aren’t any more? How many pieces can be made? I’m not so worried how to manage the aching crew who reside now because I’ve found that it is possible to love even when I know the crew will never totally leave, but there just doesn’t seem to be that much room left at the inn.
I guess that this is one of those questions that really has no answer. I know I’m weaker now, but aching weakness seems to be far more representative of the human condition than anything else. It’s why I’m a sucker for the arts- I love how beautiful our pains may become under the hands of someone talented. So I’ll leave it hanging out there as an unanswerable question and do what I tell my students to do in the dark moments of their lives (and they have some serious dark moments- not this pansy little hearbreak stuff): Hope. Just hope. It tends to have a remarkable capacity to open up spaces when it doesn’t appear that there are any left.
5 comments:
Very well said...I'm sorry that you're experiencing heartbreak right now...but it's good to hear you talk of hope...because once you loose that...then the real heartbreak sets in and real damage is done! And on a side note...I really enjoyed this last Harry Potter book...it seemed to really hit me more than any of the other books. :)
The heart is not a horcrux. The heart is strong. Did you not listen to anything that Dumbeldore said - the reason why Voldemort isn't as strong as he thinks he is is that he doesn't know how to love.
I have had my heart broken and spit upon. I have had everything I hold dear altered because the person I loved the most used their agency to break covenants that we had made together. While this made me feel weak in the moment, I am not weaker.
It is like Harry. After every time something terrible happens, after someone he cares about (parents, Serious, Dumbledore) die, he gets stronger. That's what being a human is. It is using all of our love to be better, to grow, and to love deeper.
This sucks and is hard - but we MUST do it.
PS - Finish the last book, it will blow you away!
ok. I'm going to leave the Harry Potter parallel. not just because i haven't read all the books (nor do i intend to) but because there is another point to be made.
The thing about artists is that they understand a balance that most people tend to ignore and really try very hard to blink out of existence. Pain and pleasure, light and dark, good and evil, they all exist for a reason, and they compliment each other. Goodness does not exist without some equally great evil to show us the difference. There is no light without the shadow behind it, and no pleasure without pain. So, while a person may hurt because she has thrown herself into something that snatched away that piece of her, one must assert that the pain is worth the joy of the experience before the fall.
As for giving parts of ourselves away, i think i see it much more as tying ourselves to people, showing them different parts. Each thread we attach to another tugs on a different part of us, but it doesn't make us weaker, in fact, when those threads all tug in one direction it can be one of the most powerful, moving forces on this plane of existence(read: prayer, love, theater, family). When people connect, i don't think that they give something irretrievable, but they may inextricably tie themselves to each other. When someone disconnects, it doesn't really detatch them, simply lengthens the thread, and changes the color. part of you is pulled off balance, but doesn't leave, and though that person may go so far, there will always be a connection in the memory of them.
I'm sorry you're heartbroken. That part of you that has been yanked off course will return in time. it's good you have hope.
I'm just going to throw this out there- you may need someone intelligent but simple to give you balance.
You are one complex little lady, and if you married a complex man- it could be chaos. The men you have deeply loved have all been extremely complex- and have also torn you apart.
I think you need some Yin to your Yang.
I know you get bored with simple (i'm using simple to mean not complex) but there is great beauty in simplicity as well. You can find someone who is cleaver, and simple.
As you have dated hundreds of men, I think it might be a nice experiment and give simple a chance.
As I always preach "You do what you've always done and you'll get what you've always got"
Everywhere there is breaking; yet everywhere there is also making. This is part of the paradoxical, ironic nature of human beings. When we are in the midst of breaking, the opposite seems impossible, and we wonder how much we can take. But we must work with the hope and faith that breaking is always followed by new making -- that it in fact provides the opportunity for new making. This is often difficult to see and have faith in; often it requires, in the words of Bruce Cockburn, that you "kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight". But the light is always there, even when we can't see it, and it will often emerge precisely when we doubt it exists.
How much breaking can we take? As much as we need to, have to, want to. Our capacity is limited only by our wills and imaginations.
Thus, in the words of Dylan Thomas:
"You shall be taken sweetly again
And soothed with slow tears;
You shall be loved enough."
You shall be. And so shall we all.
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