Herzschmerzen

Hot. 

That's kind of all I can think. 

Sophie and I are in Florida with the Juneau Jumpers at the national competition. I haven't been out of Juneau in 7 months so it's good to get out every now and then for a reality check on America. There are a lot of Applebees and Golden Corrals outside Alaska.

I've brought some reading material with me since I knew there would be quite a bit of down time. For the pool and short waits I have a mindless mystery that I can pick up and put down without much effort. And then I also brought Herz Schmerzen.

I wanted to immerse myself in German again before we travel in August so I grabbed one of the books that's been sitting on my shelves for a while. It was given to me by someone who thought it would be an easy read for my level of German.

What I love about the German language is how it captures an experience in a word; often it is a very long word. This isn't quite true for Schmetterling, which means butterfly without any of the grace and beauty.

It is true for Herzschmerzen. Herz is heart. Schmerzen is pain, hurt, ache, broken. We know the word broken heart; it's just that Herzschmerzen sounds like what I feel when my heart hurts.

The book is easy reading, but not light reading. Unfortunately, I am able to understand most of the German and it is a book about interviews with children who escaped the war in Yugoslavia. 
The interviews are full of heart break. 
Many of which flood into my brain as impersonal TV news images. Images that didn't seem believable in the 90s coming out of Europe so we often ignored them.

I find myself thinking of Syria and all the other places I'm too ignorant or "busy" to think of the families fleeing. All those refugees who still know the heartbreak of war.

But here I am at a jump rope competition where there have been plenty of tears and Herzschmerzen. These kids, the hundreds who are here, have trained for countless hours and in a minute, all dreams are crushed with a miss or nerves. I don't want to discount that sorrow in any way. What is weird is how I want to respond. I want to fix, buffer, or even consider bailing on such risks because watching your flesh and blood cry hurts more than anything I know.

Then I remember how important heart break is. Obviously not war and having your dad's leg blown off when he goes back to save your teddy bear. That interview was horrible, but digging through pain, guilt, and disappointment gives us the empathy to take the sorrow of the world seriously. 
Sometimes you have to just sit with heartbreak and let it wash over you until you can catch your breath. 
Sometimes it makes you push harder. 
Sometimes it keeps life in perspective. 

I'm not sure folks always learn a lesson or come out better, but often we come out more human and hopefully a little more aware of how painful life can be. Coming out of heartbreak helps us realize people do come out on the other side of pain. The heart is never the same after Herzschmerzen but there is another German word that might be helpful. Versöhnen. It means to reconcile, make friends again. 

I don't think you ever get over or move on from heartbreak, but you figure out how to reconcile to a new way of being in this world. You make friends again with your own being, with a changed reality, with a world where there is plenty of pain, guilt and disappointment. 

I often think of the sticker I have in my office. Life is short so tell people you love them, but it is also scary so shout it in German.