Jar of Hearts

I really dig this song, and I think my favorite fitness instructor does too, because she often plays it during the cool-down phase of the workout. I also dig it for helping grapple with feelings about people for whom you may have cared and/or loved, who now seem less than capable of what you thought or hoped they were capable of:

Who do you think you are?

Runnin' round leaving scars

Collecting your jar of hearts

And tearing love apart

You're gonna catch a cold

From the ice inside your soul

So don't come back for me

Who do you think you are?

The sad part is, it doesn't feel any better to treat someone badly than it does to be mistreated, and the only way I know of to melt an icy soul is love. Which takes me back to the same argument as with the blog about child abuse -- to the importance of compassion.

Too bad it is so much harder to come by some days than others. Riding home on the bike path, a guy almost hit me with his car by turning into a parking lot on the edge of the path. He then yelled something at me -- and if I'd been in my best frame of mind, I would've shrugged it off, I would've decided he'd had a hard day, I would've thought maybe I could have been more aware or more careful.

Not today. Today I used a couple of four-letter words and kept on riding, noting right after I did so that I needed to spend some time doing something that takes me out of that space and into the more generous one. I just don't have it in me to be one of the people walking around with an icy soul more than every once in a great while -- and I feel lucky that I have the emotional, physical and mental reserves to get myself back in the right direction when I veer off a bit...