HEAVY IS THE HEART

September 15th, 2025

This morning I woke up with a heavy heart. 

I’m trying to make sense of what I just saw. What I sensed and how that ties into whatever perceptions (illusion) I held prior.

The Buddha says that all desire is illusory in nature and therefore will lead to suffering. I’m beginning to see that happening in my life. For instance, all I could think about was you. I wanted you to look at me back and yet I kept getting the impression that we were like oil and water. In the same container, touching just briefly before quickly separating. Even when you are near, you remain so far, and all I wanted to do was lean in. All I wanted from you was for you to do the same. For there to be balance. 

I’m wondering what it is about you that draws me in. Is it your soulful core? 

It’s said that everything is its opposite extreme. You’re so still and that it unnerves me.

I’m like a monsoon in your presence. 

I sense tension. Like you're avoiding me and I'm avoiding you. 

Is it the distance that keeps me drawn in?

I feel guilty.

I’m wondering if I somehow made a fool of myself. 

Did you sense my desire? Did it disgust you? Scare you? Do you see me as beneath you?

And I hate how all others simply pale in comparison to you. 

Like a fraction of you. I’m not repelled, but rather underwhelmed.

This morning my alarm still went off at six o'clock. I still woke up and made breakfast. I still made it to work on time. This afternoon I still got to class early, and then went to the gym. Tonight, I’m still going to light some incense, publish this entry, and drift off into sleep. The reason being that life must go on. With or without our desires being fulfilled.

Heavy as my heart is, I know that I can’t fall into despair like I once would.

I guess the ache I’m feeling is just acceptance and:

1. Acknowledgment of my own (unmet) desire.

2. Respect for your personhood and wishes.

3.  Respect for my integrity by not trying to earn something through merit that wouldn’t otherwise be given freely.

4. Release of entitlement over a why - accepting that the closure may never come.

5. Grief for what I imagined could be, and yet isn’t.

6. Understanding that there is a future, and I am stepping into it without skipping a beat. 

7.  More grief that I’m doing so without you.

8. Retroactive pity for my younger self who struggled to accept reality in this way.

9. Gratitude for current me who can.

I guess when I list it out this way, I can see that I’m a conglomeration of feelings right now and that’s why everything feels bleak.

Heavy is the heart that is coming to terms with its own limits.

- vetiveroil