One of my best friends found my heart for me. He sent it to me and now it’s mine, bought and paid for, as we say in the Midwest.

He suggested that I fill it with the desires that light me up and start building the new life I’ve taken such insane steps to begin.

Yes, my heart is as heavy as it appears. Yes it seems to be empty.

Until you notice the vials.

There are nineteen tiny cork-stoppered vials waiting for my first  adventures to be rolled up and stuffed inside. There used to be twenty of them but as life will do when we aren’t tending to our dreams, one arrived broken.

It was a perfect reminder to sweep aside the broken things that can’t be repaired to make room for the new dreams. Things that make a new life. The very things that make me step away from the churning and turmoil of the past and create a new future for myself.

Learn to tango…

Learn Latin…

Walk in the rain, face up, eyes and heart open. All alone…

Re-read a classic…

Buy a ridiculously expensive pair of shoes that will make me magical.

These are the types of things that will fill my heart. And when I pull one out to be done, I will refill it with something new and put it right back into the heart it came from.

I’ll go to a little play in Nashville, and maybe a bigger one at the IRT in Indy.

I will stay home and re-read Aristotle’s De Animus to remember the layers of the soul.

I think I’ll have a picnic with my son and daughter and all of our pups.

I’ll cook for Momma and Daddy in my new home.

I have some crazy things going on in my heart right now, like seeing how far I can get with exactly half a tank of gas in any direction I choose and spend the night where ever it is I end up. Maybe next time I’ll go a full tank.

I wonder where I’ll be. Isn’t that amazing?

In the next few years I’ll fly overseas and breathe in the  experiences of France, Italy, Ireland and England. I’m going to drive to New York, take a train to Chicago, and fly to California when my heart tells me to do so.

See, my deceptively empty heart is full of things great and small that light me up from the inside out. The heaviness of it is necessary to keep it grounded while it holds such wonderfully outrageous things inside.

My heart is a beautiful work of art and a tool that becomes a magical thing when I put the dreams I have inside of it, and then pull them back out one by one. That is the secret to magic and miracles.

You have to work your ass off and keep your promises to yourself.

I know this to be true. I can testify. You can do whatever you want if you have the courage to make the decision and step up.

I’ve let myself down all of my life. I have disappointed and disrespected who I am. I allowed myself not to matter at all. I have taught those who “loved” me to treat me with the same disregard as I treated myself. I don’t blame them. I did that to me.

That’s history. I’m not that chick. I have a heart now. With dreams in it. My friend found it for me, so now I have a physical manifestation of the actions I’ll be taking. That rocks in ways you will never know because you’re not me. But I’ll be more than happy to share my adventures as they occur.

I doubt I’ll be able to stop myself.

I’m going to dance until the wee hours in the Dominican, I’m going to stay home and re-read the classics and I’m going to laugh with my kids as they eat the amazing enchilada’s I’ve learned to make. I’m going to sit in the courtyard and enjoy every moment. Some things I’ll have to save for, some things will ask only my time. Each and every one of them will be important.

I only need to feed and fill my heart.