Direct Pressure for a Wounded Heart

Direct Pressure for a Wounded Heart

It’s June 21^st in New Zealand (the 20^th in the US) - the shortest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. I’m unaware of both facts as I pedal my bike to the Scout hall to meet the Joggers for a run up the Mount. 

Antarctic winds gust against me as I plow forward.  I feel deflated. Today, I want my Old Life back. The one with Sean in Spokane. Barring that, the earth can swallow me like a snake devours a mouse – a single jaw snap transforms the mouse from Creature of This World to Thing That Was. Do I really want to be Someone Who Was?  No. I just don’t want to feel like this.

Real Life has invaded my island paradise and it hurts like hell. I’m grieving again. Fresh sorrow ruptures the sutures of my wounded heart. The bleeding that had long ago been stanched has resumed – gushing and spurting, making a mess of the life I’ve largely reorganized. I don’t want to feel like this.

I recently took a First Aid course where we learned to apply direct pressure to stem bleeding. We need a similar remedy for emotional pain. Direct pressure for a wounded heart – medicine to mitigate  misery. Direct Pressure equates to people and activities that bring you back to Who You Think You Are – it’s what you do for comfort, a way of transforming grumbling and grieving into gratitude and joy.

Keep Going

I run up the Mount with a friend. The first steps land awkwardly; the ascent requires concentration – the effort of up, up, up the stone steps, then up, up, up the gravel path. The work takes me out of my head into the present. I can’t think about much beyond ‘right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot…’

It reminds me of the memoir I’ve been reading before bed, Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. Strayed hiked the West Coast of the US after her mother died. She writes, “I’d set out to hike the trail so that I could reflect upon my life, to think about everything that had broken me and make myself whole again. But the truth was, at least so far, I was consumed only with my most immediate and physical suffering…“

Solo running sometimes offers too much time to meditate and ruminate. Other times, like when you’re huffing and puffing and cursing the Mount’s steep stone steps, you focus only on the task at hand. Or at foot.

As we near the summit, my friend asks a question that touches a nerve. I draw breath too quickly and nearly start the wheezing that precedes tears. I won’t allow it. I remember running in a similar state when Sean was sick; if I started crying during a run, I couldn’t consume enough air to keep moving. I’d have to stop and catch my breath. 

I won’t stop today. I will reach the summit. The view of ocean and harbor beneath an azure sky helps me reclaim myself.

After the run, I buy an hour of talk therapy for five dollars. Sitting across from my friend at a café becomes one of those Direct Pressure events that helps control the bleeding. Sharing stories is healing. Coffee is healing. Washing a wound with tears is healing.

I cycle home along the ocean, perceiving the wind this time as a bracing reminder I’m alive and well enough to power a bicycle after running the Mount.

Circling the PAHT-nah

That night, the PAHT-nah and I share a bottle of sparkling wine, salmon, cheese and flat bread pizza I’ve made from scratch. We've opened the bubbly not to celebrate an event but instead to disentangle our differences.  In a couple hours, the previous night’s argument will be discussed, dissected and put to bed.

It’s an unfortunate part of the grieving process, circling your partner anew to ask, ‘Who are you?’ I’m really asking myself whether my judgment is sound. 

It makes Pete crazy when I repeatedly chip away at the same piece of stone (that may not be the granite cliff I suspected, but instead a pea-sized pebble). It drives me nuts when I fail to chisel – what if I could’ve uncovered an important truth? This is where faith enters the circle: faith in yourself, your partner, the memories you’ve made and the life you share. Faith in the fact no amount of questioning can bulletproof a relationship. It is only in the steadfast plodding, the day-to-day of work, child-minding, dinner, dishes, homework, TV and let’s-do-it-all-again-tomorrow that you discover, incrementally, whether This Thing might work. 

Even then, it’s touch and go. You make your decision, love like today’s your last and pray for a wee bit ‘o luck.

We kiss and make up.  We give ourselves to each other, which is a literal way of applying Direct Pressure. The act is profoundly healing. 

Forgotten and Found

It is only the next day, June 21^st in the States, that I realize what I’ve forgotten– the solstice is Sean’s birthday. He would’ve been 52 years old. In the midst of new heartache, I’d forgotten my husband’s birthday. Or had I? Did I ache for something I couldn’t see?

I struggle to understand grief, to lift its weight from my shoulders. But here’s the silver lining: though we imagine the bleeding – the pain of loss from years ago, or last month or last night – will never ebb, it does. Wounded hearts require time and direct pressure – whatever brings you back to yourself, like running, writing, praying, having coffee with a friend, watching a movie (yes, Pete, I added that for you), making art, making love or making muffins. In these sweet, small moments, we set aside sorrow and build a path to joy.