A Well-Tempered Heart

I learned a lot about myself from this particular book.  Two things in particular I learned I will share here.

I learned that once an act of violence has been done to me I will most likely carry it around inside of me forever.  But it is up to me to forgive the person that did that violence against me.

I learned that because I was betrayed I will always feel betrayed unless I can learn to forgive those that betrayed me.

There are times that I don't want to forget or forgive.  It is just too hard when the nightmares plague my mind.  I can forgive the lesser insults but the deeply scarring ones are taking a lot longer to forgive even though some are more than a decade old.

Oh I realize that my mind might just be a bit freer if I can let it go and forgive that person or persons that hurt me.  But why should I forgive them?  Is it because I am wasting energy on thinking about them and what they did to me?  Is it because I feel as though they shouldn't be forgiven?  I can't tell yet.  I'm still at that point in my life that I am unable to deal with the full scale of the insult to my mind and person.

I'm not talking about an insult to me like what a bully would do.  I'm talking about something that leaves a deep scar on the brain and sometimes even on the body.  One scar that has healed is the one my brother inflicted on my face when we were children.  My brother cut my face with a knife while we were drying dishes.  I was only four years old.  My mother didn't take me to the ER to get stitches and I still carry some of the scar on my face though it has faded and can't be seen all that well now that I am four decades older.  It really is the fact that my brother lashed out at me with a knife in his anger.  It is the fact that my own mother didn't think the cut was bad enough for stitches.  Every school photo showed the scar on my face and often I was asked how I came about it.  I have forgiven my brother for the scar but I can't forgive him for the anger.  He still carries such violent anger around with him.

I have yet to forgive my parents for having a favorite child.  Now that I'm pregnant and my parents are wishing a boy upon me I wonder if they would be happy if I had a girl.  I am actually fearful that they would not love my child if it were a girl.  Yes, there are some scars that stay with me.  I was not loved as much as a child should have been because of my gender.  Too my parents I was almost useless as I would not carry on the family name.  A girl is nothing to them.  If I have a girl I'm not sure I want my parents near her for fear of what mental pain they might put her through.

This post was inspired by the novel A Well-Tempered Heart by Jan-Philipp Sendker.  Feeling lost and burned out, Julia drops her well paying job at a NYC law firm. After hearing a strangers’ voice in her head, she travels to Burma to find the voice’s story and hopefully herself as well. Join From Left to Write on February 4 we discuss A Well-Tempered Heart. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Wait and Listen, You'll Hear It

Most of you know by now that I'm an Army Wife.  If you are reading my blog post for the first time you now know that little fact.  My life is primarily wrapped around this fact too.

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker is a wonderful tale that I felt I could best relate to with the fact that love can withstand time.  J has been deployed, he has been on isolation tours and away for long periods of time for classes and training.  Because of all our time apart I can well understand what Tin Win and Mi Mi must have felt.  Their love stood the test of time.

When I first jumped into the pages of this particular book I was exclaiming what a rogue Tin Win was to be so fickle with his affections.  But was he?  No, he knew love and he knew that love can be felt in different ways and with different people.  I know that this is very true.  There is the person that deploys, the soldier.  I have to treat my husband very differently when he is a soldier.  I must not upset him with every day events that make it seem like I can't handle being alone.  Then there is the guy that I married, the civilian, the guy that comes home from work each day and wants to be bothered with the trivial aspects of marriage.  Our love is different from how we are apart.

I can't help but wonder that if Tin Win felt able to dishonor his father figure distant cousin if he would have been extremely happy with Mi Mi or if he would have felt the boredom that can grow with taking one's spouse for granted.  The fact that they were apart for so long, not unlike the times I've been apart from my husband but just not for as long as the fictional couple, might have kindled the romance even more.  When apart from J I often would gloss over the bad parts that are there in the every day life and don the rose colored glasses of the newness of relationships.  Though I do slip those glasses on when he leaves I remember to take them off when he comes back.  It is the reality that is the true test of love, the real love that can withstand the test of time.


As a member of From Left To Write I received a free copy of this book to read and write a personal review for my blog.  All of the opinions stated in my blog are of course my own.

 When Julia travels to Burma to search for her missing lawyer father, she discovers much more than she expected. 

Join From Left to Write on February 1 as we discuss The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker.