a scribble of jo

Sometimes I hate the necessity of what hurts us. I dislike the fact that I care too deeply or that I’m moved too easily by what others consider the little things. Last night I talked to a student of mine and she said she gets over things quickly because she knows it’s just  a mind thing. And I feel envy for those who can sum up a broken heart to a trick of the cranial cavity’s contents.

But then I look at my notebook, the one I’ve been filling since senior year in college. It’s a collection of other people’s words and images, and the only rule for anything included within is that it’s a picture or a quote or a passage that’s made me take a second look. It’s a picture or a batch of words that has stirred something in me.

So I look at this book, and I think of who it makes me to care for the little things. Am I weak for loving a combination of words and sentiment on paper? Am I fool for stirring at the image of a man reading a page-tattered book?

Then call me weak, and call me a fool. I don’t want to let go of the things that move me. In the same way that I refuse to regret the things that hurt me. Hurt me, because it means I still love. Break my heart, because it means God will fix it again just in time for the next shattering. Stir me, because it means I still care.

They knew what they were saying when they said the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. May we be spared from a curse such as this. To not feel. To not know grief. To not know the stab of betrayal. To not know loss. All this equates to never knowing love or the hum of loyalty or the warmth of being cherished.