The absence of my functioning heart leaves me breathless, vomiting, and in ruins. The odd mixture of pain feels quite fitting as I look out over the River Boyne in County Meath, Ireland. On top of the Keep, I cannot get over the view that pans before my eyes—rolling hills in various shades of green, with stone walls slowly flowing in the distance. It sounds cliché but the postcard image exists before me and underneath me.
How I find beauty despite the anguish I do not know.
The rain from the morning finished when we ambled off the bus as if it had foreshadowed our tour of the castle. Now looking out I see vegetation more luscious in color than I’ll ever see at home in America. The green somehow emanating more deeply in color with every piece of foliage and upon every hill. Tranquility and stillness.
When I close my eyes I feel the breeze whisper across my cheeks, the smell of sheep and soil suddenly invading my nostrils. I gag slightly, but nothing compared to the morning I spent over the toilet. How ironic that filth would invade such a moment.
Opening my eyes I focus on more ruins in the distance. Pieces of once grand structures, their strong walls now suitable as piles of stones. I have a sudden feeling of fear when I glance out over the edge realizing how high I am, and in looking at the edifices reduced to ruins, the sudden onset of chest pain and breathlessness returns.
۩ ۩ ۩
The word ruins describe the remains of man-made architecture: structures that were once complete but which have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction. Many ruins often become progressively neglected over time due to long-term weather and scavenging.
Trim Castle, located 28 miles northwest of Dublin in County Meath along the banks of the River Boyne, is one of the largest and most beautiful Anglo-Norman castle ruins in Ireland. It has the reputation as being the king of all Irish castles and was built to display the great wealth and dominance of its owners.
However, over time it was purposely allowed to deteriorate, falling into ruins.
During the 16th century the castle was abandoned by Oliver Cromwell’s Army and allowed to depreciate. Over the next few hundred years its ownership passed from hand to hand never having as much purpose as it did originally. At one point it became the site for a municipal dump.
When beautiful things are neglected, they become trashed.
In 1993, Trim Castle estate was sold back to the country of Ireland and the Office of Public Works began a major program of conservation and exploratory works trying to restore the grand castle without changing the history and construction of it.
It’s hard rebuilding from the ground up.
I’ve been afraid of heights in my lifetime. I’ve been afraid of spiders. I’ve been afraid of snakes and public speaking. I’ve been afraid of flying and of the dark, but I’ve never been afraid of death. There has never been any reason to be scared of something so certain. What has pained me the most in this short brevity of life has been the idea of my heart shattered. Of it being broken into thousands of hopeless, inadequate pieces. Because once my heart has metaphorically faded, what will keep the rest of me from ruins?
“With what a deep devotedness of woe
I wept thy absence - o'er and o'er again
Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain,
And memory, like a drop that, night and day,
Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!”
-Thomas Moore
Now, what I fear the most is living and simply feeling nothing.
Most people with broken hearts experience symptoms manifesting through psychological pain, claiming to feel nothing; however, there are such symptoms of physical effects:
· Stomach ache and/or loss of appetite
· Partial or complete insomnia
· Anger
· Shock
· Nostalgia
· Apathy
· Loneliness
· Hopelessness
· Denial
· Fatigue
· The thousand-yard stare
· Frequent crying
· A feeling of complete emptiness
· A perceived tightness of the chest, similar to an anxiety attack
However, the experience of great suffering and emotional pain is commonly regarded as indescribable, though a broken heart may occur.
۩ ۩ ۩
Stress cardiomyopathy is the sudden, temporary weakening of the myocardium, the muscle of the heart. Triggered by something very unexpected, such as the death of a loved one, this syndrome can actually be fatal. Clinically different from a heart attack, stress cardiomyopathy is known as ‘broken heart syndrome’ because to ordinary eyes, it seems as if people die from what appears to simply be a broken heart.
Most onsets of stress cardiomyopathy begin like a regular heart attack—the sudden onset of congestive heart failure or chest pain associated with EKG changes suggestive of an anterior wall heart attack. But what really happens with stress cardiomyopathy is that some people respond to abrupt, overwhelming emotional stress by releasing large amounts of catecholamines (specifically adrenalin and noradrenalin, also called epinephrine and norepinephrine) into the blood stream, along with their breakdown products and small proteins produced by an excited nervous system. These chemicals can be temporarily toxic to the heart, effectively stunning the muscle thus producing symptoms similar to a typical heart attack, including chest pain, fluid in the lungs, shortness of breath and heart failure.
In general, the lack of maintenance in life, or sometimes those deliberate acts of destruction force hearts into a ruin-like state.
“I kneel before you not as a prince, but as a man in love... But I would feel like a king if you, Danielle De Barbarac, would be my wife.”
Ever After
Though castles clearly exist and royalty once claimed them, there is no such hope for a happily-ever-after. The moment when he kneeled before me and took my hand remains in the back of my heart and replays itself over and over again in one of the tiny pieces that somehow continue to pump me with life. In the same breath in which he asked for my heart, he took it away when he firmly decided I wasn’t important to him anymore. Like most, I cannot explain the pain that still resides in the hollowness of my chest and continues to haunt me, words are inadequate and symptoms are indescribable. I simply feel nothing.
But for a brief moment I know what brokenness is. Crumbled on the ground of a 12th century castle, I wrap my arms around my chest to hold everything in.
