She has inherited my heart, I think. And so I may have to teach her to fight.

I was taught to fight my heart, this loneliness that nothing fixes, even happiness. They tried, anyway. My mother encouraging gentleness. My father demanding discipline. I tried teaching these lessons that I had not learned well to my daughter the same way. It worked out as well as anyone could expect.  

The loneliness. People often misunderstand the word. Loneliness. I am loved and seen and embraced and fortunate in that regard. But people are driven by primal urges the way diesel drives the steam engines on old riverboats. It radiates out, like a leaky oil can. Some are driven by love. Some by anger. Some by sadness. There are others. And then there are those of us driven by an impossible loneliness. It’s being a room full of people and not connecting to any of them. It’s being in a room full of family and friends and feeling rudderless. It’s being alone on a city sidewalk and drifting in and out traffic. It’s waking up each morning and having to remind yourself that even loneliness can be a blessing, and what a wonder it is when there is one person who can see through the mist to the heart the bleeds and wants and needs and loves and sometimes needs the loneliness, too. It sometimes drives people away without meaning to.

But it takes time to master and there are pitfalls. It’s easy to try and fill the loneliness with things. It never works. 

I had to learn to fight. My daughter did, too. Her daughter has inherited our heart, I think. And I think I will try teaching her differently. That sometimes, it’s ok to fight. Especially when the world is wrong. Because the heart never is.