When I was in fifth grade I got really, 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 and 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, I mean, I had made it that far, could 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 and thought it was pretty unfair it had to work all the time while me 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 wondered about how it was going to get through all those 2.5 billion pumps.
Then Mr. Albertson came to mind. He had a heart attack. He was one of the energetic people I knew then. He was my neighbor and they took him away in an ambulance and he was pretty white. I didn't quite understand what a heaart attack was 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, 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.
Don’t know how I slept through it all but, eventually, I got to 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 would get dumped and do 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. Doesn't feel any different than in fifth grade, at least it doesn't in bed, and it’s been through at least 1.2 billion beats and it worries me. What if it never stops? Now, I know there’s people out there that would like that problem and I feel for them, but if mine doesn't feel any different than when Ms. Adams told me it could fill several swimming pools with blood every week, maybe it won’t know when to stop. Maybe when my heads 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).
So, anyway, I’m up late at night a lot. My hearts 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 and thought it was pretty unfair it had to work all the time while me 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 wondered about how it was going to get through all those 2.5 billion pumps.
Then Mr. Albertson came to mind. He had a heart attack. He was one of the energetic people I knew then. He was my neighbor and they took him away in an ambulance and he was pretty white. I didn't quite understand what a heaart attack was 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, 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.
Don’t know how I slept through it all but, eventually, I got to 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 would get dumped and do 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. Doesn't feel any different than in fifth grade, at least it doesn't in bed, and it’s been through at least 1.2 billion beats and it worries me. What if it never stops? Now, I know there’s people out there that would like that problem and I feel for them, but if mine doesn't feel any different than when Ms. Adams told me it could fill several swimming pools with blood every week, maybe it won’t know when to stop. Maybe when my heads 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).
So, anyway, I’m up late at night a lot. My hearts beating. What about yours?
Loren M. Lambert © November 19, 2013
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