The pitter patter of her heart was becoming an unwelcome companion. So constant were its onerous demands that she almost forgot how recently she had welcomed it back.

With a mind of its own, this heart would erupt at the most inopportune times. A word, a thought, a song, a sight would drift into her world, and suddenly, without warning, that heart would be afloat again.

Its rapid pattering interrupted her previously mundane existence with its constant cries for attention. Sometimes that pattering brought her to her feet, dancing lightly around the room. Other times, that pattering caused her to fall to her knees in despair, wondering when the pain would end.

And then, there were the times when that heart of hers brought with it pangs so deep, so delicious, so glorious that they cut right through her. In those times, it was all she could do to remember to breathe. She couldn’t decide whether she loved or hated these pangs with their perfect pairing of opposites – bitter and sweet, joy and sorrow, love and loss.

Each time those pangs arrived, she wasn’t sure she could survive. And then when they passed, all she could do was yearn for their return. She knew it made no logical sense. The part of her that had locked away her heart knew how to make sense of things. And it knew, without a doubt, no sense was to be made of this.

She wondered if she had made a mistake letting her heart free. Was her heart too wild? Were her feelings too strong to tame?

She felt a slave to this freed heart, its fluttering leading her this way and that, always floating in the world, never quite grounded. She would be lying if she said she did not sometimes miss the days when she carried that heart around in a box. At least then, she didn’t have to endure the painful pangs that now came all too frequently.

But then, she remembered that without those painful pangs, there would be no pleasant pangs, no passion, no feeling of being alive. And so, she’d continue to reckon with this heart, learning to follow its pitter patter, wherever it may lead.