A Broken Heart

Sometimes the Two Lucys do not get along with each other. We disagree with each other’s point of view. We bicker. We irritate each other. She sometimes walks away from me after giving me the well-known imperious wave of her hand that says, “I’m done with you. Buzz off.” I sometimes disappear into the bathroom and scrub something just to keep from screaming.

It’s a pretty typical situation, right? No two people who live together are thrilled with each other 100% of the time. Whether it’s your freshman roommate in the dorm or the beloved person you married however-many years ago – if you share a living space with someone, you will rub each other the wrong way now and then.

Lucy#1 and I have done pretty well overall. We each have been frustrated with the other occasionally, but we have gotten over it and gotten back to normal quickly. (I’m actually kind of surprised by how quickly!)

The interesting thing to me is that the longer we live together, the more I seem get over our various issues pretty much immediately, no matter how dramatic our disagreement may be or how cranky I am about the situation. In fact, often I never become frustrated or angry or upset at all, no matter what has happened.

I think my calmer attitude stems from a heart that is broken for Lucy#1 on a daily basis. My heart simply cannot be upset with Lucy#1 anymore.

The things that break my heart are too many to enumerate here, but the first-place and most-constant heartbreaking moment for me every day is whenever Lucy#1 walks away from me. It doesn’t matter if she has given me the “buzz off” wave and is stomping off in fury or if she is merely going into the next room or if I see her out the kitchen window while she is on the front porch smoking. It’s the way she looks walking away from me that breaks my heart, no matter why she’s walking away. She is so tiny, so defenseless, so much less strong than she used to be.

 

Lucy#1 is still her same old self in many, many ways, but the ways she is not herself seem more immediate to me when she is walking away. I don’t know why that is, exactly. Maybe when I see her walk away, her very frailness points out that day-by-day she is closer to going away from me forever.

Oh, how that breaks my heart.