on broken hearts

My friend John is a fabulous writer, and he recently wrote a piece about how to get over a broken heart. (The crux of his argument? Pina Coladas.) And, while his suggestion of bellying up to the bar isn't necessarily something I'd recommend to my readers (no offense, John) the way he describes the strength of the human heart really spoke to me, so I thought I'd share it with you:

"It helps to think of your heart as a piece of steel. Not chocolate or flesh or crepe paper. A shiny ball of steel. Which has a breaking point. But have you ever seen steel forged? It's heated in a volcano hot furnace until it glows white. It's so hot, the hard steel is malleable. Then it's hammered and hammered and hammered. Smashed into shape. Two pieces are clobbered to form one whole piece and then the steel is dumped into water. Once it's cooled, it's as hard as... well, you know. I've had my heart broken many, many times. And each time, I ended up stronger. My furnace? A Pina Colada. Maybe some Patsy Cline. A new friend, if just for that moment."

(You can read the rest of the article here.)

It's easy to think that you're not up to a challenge, or that you've been hurt so badly that you'll never recover. But keeping this image of an invulnerable heart in your mind, remembering that no matter what you throw at it, it will only get stronger... well, it works for me.