Brave Hearts

We all have these characters that we pull for in movies, tv shows, and books. Often the most relatable characters are the ones that have suffered a lot. They’ve experienced a type of heartbreak that has completely broken them open. We hold their hands through their vulnerability. We cry with and for them. We root for them when they are their most torn up, torn apart, and decimated.

So the part of the story that we identify with is when they are stripped bare of all the things that made them comfortable with themselves and they have to learn how to accept where they are and keep moving forward.

I’m still trying to figure that out. I’m pretty sure we all are. Soldiers come back from war having been very literally stripped of any kind of comfort and they have to rise above the disintegration of what they would have defined themselves by.

One of my friends was born with a disease and there were years of being stripped of the people and things she loved, being stripped of things she was able to do, and having no choice about it and being left in the wake of the destruction still having to figure out how to live a life with purpose.

She celebrated her 16th birthday in the hospital. She’s grown up in hospitals, had heart attacks, had surgery, been left bare against the cold of circumstances and pain, and somehow she is in school pursuing a degree in engineering so that she can help those who, like her, have endured the drawn out pain of loss. She wants to create things for others so that their loss won’t be as great as hers was. She is an extremely independent person who knows just how painful it is to not be able to do the things that everyone takes for granted. She is actively pursuing a creative perspective that will enable her to have a career that will make living a full life accessible to everyone.

I have a friend with inter cranial hypertension who has had brain surgery to put a shunt in to help drain extraneous fluid so that she doesn’t have wicked death-like migraines and doesn’t go blind.

When facing the loss of physical capabilities it is super easy to become angry and bitter with the world, to hide away from people, and to become a curmudgeon and yell at kids to get off your lawn.

She works with little kids all day, everyday. She loves their energy, is joyful to watch them grow, and she has fallen apart and struggles to appear to be whole. Most days she can fool the world. She seeks to live life at the edge of her seat. She has a bold streak in her that allows for skydiving and planning for swimming with sharks and though not many know, her character is heavy laden with love, empathy, and protectiveness.

I have lost the ability to hold my camera for more than ten minutes without my wrist, knuckles, and fingers to start emitting a burning pain and eventually turning red and throbbing. I have lost the ability to go to sleep and be able to stay asleep the whole night. Often I wake up at around 3am and deal with a myriad of pains that make comfort or sleep impossible for as long as my pain pleases. I have electric shock pain in my muscles throughout my body, joint pain that makes tearing up or crying a normal part of my day, sometimes not being able to walk, migraines that impair me entirely, and the energy level of an 80 year old. But I’m not giving up. I’m pursuing my photography, learning more about graphic design, wanting to learn more about my passion, wanting to work, writing when I can, and learning how to push myself and be okay with the consequences because I got to feel like an average bear for a little while.

So my friends and I, I would say, are firmly planted in that place where in the movie our audience would be crying with and for us and simultaneously pumping their fists in the air. It’s a real William Wallace moment…

Cause our pain may take our lives but it will never take our hope or our determination to live it.

Sidenote: We all get caught up in our lives. The William Wallace moments. When we feel invisible and helpless. When we have no idea what in the world we are doing or how to accomplish what we want to. I’m pulling for you.

Sincerely yours,

The Undefeated