heart in a cage

From as early as we can remember, we are taught -- whether directly by someone or indirectly by our own subconscious -- to build a wall, around ourselves, to protect ourselves from getting our hearts and spirits broken. But every now and then, something -- or more precisely, someone -- comes along and starts nicking at it -- whether with a careful fingernail or a pickaxe -- and before we know it, we ourselves are helping them along by taking down the wall we so carefully constructed. And of course, once we've taken down that wall and let our guard down, it doesn't take much to make us wish we'd kept the wall right where it had been. And so the mending and rebuilding starts all over again, in one vicious cycle.

In a world where so many things are uncertain, is it any surprise that some people start to think of everything as touch-and-go? When that certain person waltzes in and out of our lives as they please, we start to fear that each time we see them could be the last. When one relationship ends badly, we start to think that maybe we just don't do well in them and that every subsequent relationship is therefore similarly doomed. Sometimes it's almost as if we're afraid to be happy or hope that things will turn out right this time around, because that just makes the fall higher and much harder. Some call it being real. Others call it being paranoid. But maybe it's just being cautious: that subconscious rebuilding phase so that nothing or no one can ever touch us again.

But the one thing we never learn, the one thing -- besides caution -- that we choose to throw to the wind, is that no matter how well we build that wall, no matter how securely we keep our hearts caged in under lock and key, someone will always get in, and they're there before we even realize it. It's whether or not we choose to leave them there or lock them out that makes all the difference, and it's not always as clear-cut as it seems.