{"id":38,"date":"2008-03-04T02:25:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-04T02:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washwords.wordpress.com\/2008\/03\/04\/i-dont-want-to-open-my-heart\/"},"modified":"2008-03-04T02:25:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-04T02:25:00","slug":"i-dont-want-to-open-my-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/2008\/i-dont-want-to-open-my-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"I don&#8217;t want to open my heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>*B* tells me they&#8217;re having troubles. Baby-making troubles.<\/p>\n<p>B, the friend who spread out a blanket with me in the wet bluegreen grass outside our dorm room so we could have a slumber party under the stars (while our suitemates went clubbing). B, who when I broached the unspeakable &#8230; &#8220;divorce&#8221;, asked me earnestly, warmly &#8220;so what if you do?&#8221; allowing me to be okay in the eyes of at least one human.<\/p>\n<p>Other friends said my voice changed whenever I talked to B. We&#8217;d listen to jazz in the dark or eat cheese and grapes or go for snowy walks. We&#8217;d joke that it was too bad we weren&#8217;t attracted to women &#8211; marrying each other would be so much simpler. But in truth, I was glad we weren&#8217;t; asexually,we were able to love each other so much more &#8211; more purely, more authentically.<\/p>\n<p>So when she writes me out of the blue that she is hurting and fearful and ashamed, I tell her what I know to be true: that God is not punishing her, that as she so often told me that God has a plan, for her precious gifts too.<\/p>\n<p>And B, my pastor friend, spiritual counselor, doctor of theology, says thanks.<\/p>\n<p>I tell her I wish I could have a baby for her, because I am just not sure I want a baby of my own, full as my heart is with love for my niece and the kids in my life; I&#8217;m just surprisingly not sure it is for me any more.<\/p>\n<p>She says her acupuncturist gave her a CD called &#8220;open your heart to a new life&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And,&#8221; says B &#8220;I realized I wasn&#8217;t sure I wanted to open my heart to a new life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I say I understand. I do. But I hope she can and does. She has so many gifts in that heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>*B* tells me they&#8217;re having troubles. Baby-making troubles. B, the friend who spread out a blanket with me in the wet bluegreen grass outside our dorm room so we could have a slumber party under the stars (while our suitemates went clubbing). B, who when I broached the unspeakable &#8230; &#8220;divorce&#8221;, asked me earnestly, warmly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[622],"tags":[13,50,23],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words","tag-friend","tag-love","tag-meditation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}