The heart has its reasons

Image from Sarah Heinrichs (click to visit her photostream)

This past weekend, I was struck by this snippet in the This American Life show Frenemies about a scorpion who pleaded with a turtle to fetch him from the shore to cross the water (this segment is about 40 minutes in) . The turtle was hesitant; "won't you just sting me?" he asked, and the scorpion answered, "Well, if I did that, I'd kill us both!" The turtle thinks for a moment and decided this made enough sense to risk trusting the scorpion.

He fetches him and no sooner is the scorpion on board that he drives his stinger into the turtle.

They both sink into the water, drowning. The turtle cried out in distress, "why did you do that!!" The scorpion, equally confused by his suicidal actions, replied, "I don't know, it's just what I do!"

It was the after paragraph that  stirred me the most though:

What can we learn from their watery end?
Is there some lesson on how to be friends?
I think what it means is,
central to living a life that is good,
is a life that's forgiving.

We're creatures of contact
regardless of whether we kiss or we wound,
still, we must come together.

Though I may spell destruction
we still ask for more
since it beats staying dry
but so lonely on shore.

So we make ourselves open
while knowing full well
it's essentially saying
please... come pierce my shell.

Everytime we open ourselves to caring about someone, we also open ourselves up to hurt.

The past few weeks have been hard for me. I have met some wonderful guys recently who seem to appreciate me but I'm just not there. And I can't force it. I'm not ready for my shell to be pierced by anyone new in my life. (*Established loves or crushes greater than a year may be exempt.)

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not. 
~ Blaise Pasqual 

Chelsea talks about this on her blog (snippets included here):

I've managed to rack up more than one perfectly dateable, solid, great guy who thinks he can change my mind. And you know what, selfishly, I'll let him try... I'll let him try because I don't think I'm a total lost cause. I'll let him try because I believe in romance and love and connection and that whole "soulmate" thing. I'll let him (them) try because I believe amazing magical things can happen... I'll let him try because he knows that he's "trying..." 

I'm a girl who doesn't have the ability to make the distinction between someone "right" and someone right now. I'm a hurt person running the risk of hurting other people...

You let him make you laugh, then you let him say, "I'll go to war for your heart..." and you revel in that, because the one that was "right" didn't say that. And probably never will. SO, you let people adore you, because as much as you don't think you're worth adoring....

See her full entry (goddamn does she rock) -->

Still, I have an enormous sense of peace having come to this acceptance. I'm enjoying my drawing class. I come home from work sometimes and throw everything down and grab my sketchpad like a drowning woman, ignoring hunger and thirst and discomfort just for the chance to scribble. And I allow myself to drink from these strange, new, foreign waters within until something shifts inside and I'm no longer submerged. Life is good.

I have more to write but will have to save that for another time. I'm still getting lots of texts, calls & emails from the few new guys I've met since starting this blog despite the "I just want to be friends" honesty. Sometimes I am flattered and sometimes I am uncomfortable. I'm still sorting much out.