When I was in fifth grade, I got really, really depressed when Mrs. Adams, my teacher, told us our hearts beat about 70 to 75 beats per minute, 100,000 times in one day, about 35 million times in a year, and about 2.5 billion times in a life. I could come to grips with the 75 beats a minute. After all, I had made it that far. I could also count my pulse (and my heart felt pretty good), but the “2.5 billion times” was beyond what I could wrap my mind around. I couldn't fathom it.
I’d lie awake at night and could feel my heart pumping, wondering if it was tired yet. I thought it was pretty unfair it had to work all the time while I, and the rest of my body, would soon be asleep. I couldn't imagine that it could just go on and on and on without a single potty break, siesta, or recess, and I wondered about how it was going to get through all those 2.5 billion pumps.
Then, Mr. Albertson came to mind. He’d had a heart attack. He was my neighbor and one of the energetic people I knew, then. They took him away in an ambulance and he looked pretty white. I didn't quite understand what it was all about, but it made sense. I would attack, too, if I had to beat all the time. When Mr. Albertson came home, he started going for walks every night, and he walked real slow. I thought it was so his heart wouldn't get mad and attack him again. It made me wonder when my heart would attack me and why everybody’s heart didn’t attack them.
I don’t know how I slept through it all, but eventually, I reached my teens and twenties. Then, I was worried my heart wouldn't beat correctly, wouldn't let me win, wouldn't let me down easy. I ran and worked out and swam and kayaked and dated and fell in love and got dumped and did it all over again. It took me a while to learn that, yeah, I could condition it to a point, but it was just going to do what it wanted and I wasn't going to be able to do anything about it. So, the roller coaster went on and on, and it’s been a good ride.
Now, I lay awake at night and I can still feel my heart beating. It doesn't feel any different than it did in fifth grade – at least not in bed – but I’m sure it’s been through at least 1.2 billion beats and it worries me. What if it never stops? I know there are people out there who would like that problem and I feel for them, but if mine doesn't feel any different than when Ms. Adams told me that it could fill several swimming pools with blood every week, maybe it won’t know when to stop. Maybe when my head is all full of holes so big that a .45 mag bullet slug could pass through it with out hitting a single neuron, or maybe when I can’t tell the difference between a month-old salmon fillet and a woman's breast, my heart will just keep on pumping until I’m nothing more than the sum of all my sore body parts. Or, maybe when I do kill over, and I’m all decked out in my coffin, my heart will just start up, like in some Edgar Allen Poe story, and the embalming fluid will squirt out my eyeballs. (That’s why I want to be cremated.)
I’m up late at night a lot. My heart’s beating. What about yours?
Loren M. Lambert © November 19, 2013
I’d lie awake at night and could feel my heart pumping, wondering if it was tired yet. I thought it was pretty unfair it had to work all the time while I, and the rest of my body, would soon be asleep. I couldn't imagine that it could just go on and on and on without a single potty break, siesta, or recess, and I wondered about how it was going to get through all those 2.5 billion pumps.
Then, Mr. Albertson came to mind. He’d had a heart attack. He was my neighbor and one of the energetic people I knew, then. They took him away in an ambulance and he looked pretty white. I didn't quite understand what it was all about, but it made sense. I would attack, too, if I had to beat all the time. When Mr. Albertson came home, he started going for walks every night, and he walked real slow. I thought it was so his heart wouldn't get mad and attack him again. It made me wonder when my heart would attack me and why everybody’s heart didn’t attack them.
I don’t know how I slept through it all, but eventually, I reached my teens and twenties. Then, I was worried my heart wouldn't beat correctly, wouldn't let me win, wouldn't let me down easy. I ran and worked out and swam and kayaked and dated and fell in love and got dumped and did it all over again. It took me a while to learn that, yeah, I could condition it to a point, but it was just going to do what it wanted and I wasn't going to be able to do anything about it. So, the roller coaster went on and on, and it’s been a good ride.
Now, I lay awake at night and I can still feel my heart beating. It doesn't feel any different than it did in fifth grade – at least not in bed – but I’m sure it’s been through at least 1.2 billion beats and it worries me. What if it never stops? I know there are people out there who would like that problem and I feel for them, but if mine doesn't feel any different than when Ms. Adams told me that it could fill several swimming pools with blood every week, maybe it won’t know when to stop. Maybe when my head is all full of holes so big that a .45 mag bullet slug could pass through it with out hitting a single neuron, or maybe when I can’t tell the difference between a month-old salmon fillet and a woman's breast, my heart will just keep on pumping until I’m nothing more than the sum of all my sore body parts. Or, maybe when I do kill over, and I’m all decked out in my coffin, my heart will just start up, like in some Edgar Allen Poe story, and the embalming fluid will squirt out my eyeballs. (That’s why I want to be cremated.)
I’m up late at night a lot. My heart’s beating. What about yours?
Loren M. Lambert © November 19, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment