Without realizing it, my heart developed a self image. Subconsciously, I saw my own heart as made of porcelain. An exquisite object, weighty with glory. And shattered. It was shattered.

An ex-patriot since infancy, everywhere I’ve ever lived, shards of my heart were elsewhere. As I’ve lived and loved in far flung places, more and more fragments of my shattered heart were strewn across the globe. As the pieces of me broke into progressively smaller slivers, my edges grew more jagged, sharper, and harder to hold.

And the thing I wanted most in all the world was to be held. To feel all of me brought together and embraced. To feel my full weight land somewhere.
On some level, we probably all want that.

It finally occurred to me that all the disparate places where I spent myself and my love didn’t subtract from me. They just meant I needed a new way of seeing my heart.

So I’m experimenting with a different story. My heart is still weighty with glory. But I’m playing around with the idea that it could be intact. Instead of the static, precious object I imagined, I’m picturing something more supple and dynamic.

You know those parachutes preschoolers play with?
That’s my heart’s new self image.

Parts of my heart are still flung across the globe. But it doesn’t have to be shattered for that to be true. People from the UK, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Hungary, Russia, Israel, Ethiopia, India, Australia, Canada, and the US all hold an edge of this massive undulating circle. Without being fragmented, my heart spans oceans. I am spread thin, but not fragile. My seemingly weightless heart has surprising tensile strength.

Carrying my heart now is literally child’s play. My expansive, unfurled heart is the opposite of cumbersome. Everyone holds such a small portion of the edge, and if anyone drops their bit, it doesn’t collapse.

In the past, there weren’t enough hands to keep it aloft. When just one person let go, it crumpled. Now there are enough people sharing the weight, and it’s so well disbursed, I ripple and roil and everyone holding on gazes in wonder as I swell and swoop to the rhythm of their collective tugs.

This buoyancy is deepening my capacity. I feel more capable of defying gravity, and of holding other people along their edges.

I still long to be gathered up, concentrated. To feel myself come to rest in a singular somewhere. That will be beautiful when it happens, it’s just not what this time is about.

This time is about learning to be held along the edges. A smile, a squeeze of my hand, a thoughtful question, a belly laugh. In isolation they aren’t enough to keep me aloft. Together, they carried me through yesterday, and they are carrying me through today.

It’s true that my closest friends will never gather together around my table. My grief over that is real. Still, just the slightest tug along my edge reminds me I am with them.

We all rise and fall from our center. Yet at our edges, we are tethered to each other. I am holding on, and I am held. My weight is borne by a multitude from many nations.