One of the biggest struggles of my adulthood has been the fight to keep my heart open.

It came so naturally to me as a child. I recall, as a very little girl, sitting with my mother on the edge of her bed as she folded laundry. I was trying to convey to her how very much I loved her. I remember that no matter how many “verys” I added, I knew with my empathic heart that my mother wasn’t receiving all that love. My heart was so overflowing, and there simply was no appropriate container for it.

But by 25, I had seen things that could not be unseen. I didn’t like who I had become. And by 32, I had gone from a child’s open-heart, to a slightly jaded idealist‘s bleeding heart, to a lukewarm shell. I may have clung to my heart-open music, like Jewel’s “I’m Sensitive” (“I’m sensitive/and I’d like to stay that way”) but I was in a very real fight to keep my heart open.

Someone made a casual comment this week, one that made me view this struggle in a whole new light. The details aren’t important; suffice it to say it was a comment that suggested that, in this country, being rich or poor, insured or uninsured, healthy or sick, was a very real and actual measure of what you deserved in life. As such, no move should be made to seek fairness in these matters. My bleeding heart bristled and my hackles went up, because I will always be a natural guardian and defender of the underdog. (“Cause where there's a man who has no voice/ There ours shall go singing..”)

To be my heart is to know unrest. If I am committed to having an open heart, then this is the corresponding curse -- I just don't know how to be otherwise.

So I struggled with the feeling that bubbled up, not knowing what to do with it. I turned away from my computer and I went to the store.

Before I got inside the door, a woman standing outside asked me if I had money for cab fare. She had just gotten out of the hospital next door. Now giving money isn’t always the answer; but in this case it felt right. I gave her $1 in quarters, instead of the $10 bill I had, because I knew that I needed that money. But I gave her something.

She said "God bless you".

As I walked into the store, I thought: YES, I AM BLESSED. It is not a curse, but a blessing that I know the value of a human life. I know that a person has value whether they are straight, gay, rich, poor, homeless, insured or uninsured. And because I know this, I know that I myself have value.

If you truly believe that someone else's life has less value than yours, than doesn’t it stand to reason that you may actually not have value yourself? Or that if you do have value now, you could lose it at any time? Does the God of your understanding really teach this?

We ALL have value, we would not exist otherwise. This is true even of the people I disagree with. I can only feel bad for people who don't know the blessing of knowing that we all matter. We do matter.

Standing in the store I felt a bit like the Grinch when his heart grows 3 sizes, except in my case what grew was my awareness of my heart and the tears that filled my eyes. Standing in the sunscreen aisle, I realized that my greatest blessing, the big OH YES I AM BLESSED piece of my life, is my heart.

America has heart disease.

All this worry about “Me me me me, what is it gonna cost me?” That is the disease. It will choke and strangle your heart faster than you can blink.

But giving is simple, and a little can mean so much. To the clerk in the store who’s just been verbally abused by a rude customer, a kind word can help them to go on with their day. A gentle squeeze to a person's shoulder might be the first time they've been touched in a kind way in years. It doesn't have to cost a dime.

I gave the woman $1 instead of the $10 I had in my purse. Being a giving person does not mean you have to give it all away, unless you want to, nor does it mean that you forget to care for yourself. Had I merely stopped to hear her and acknowledge the situation she was in, providing her a moment of human connection, that would have had no less value than if I had handed her a $10 bill. True giving has value whether it is money or not -- the value is measured by the quality of your intent and not the quantity of your giving.

I admire people who live with hearts so wide open, that I find myself worrying how easily they could be shattered. But au contraire: these people, time and again, prove themselves to be the strongest people I know. Maybe having your heart broken repeatedly actually makes you stronger. Maybe it’s true human connection, largely unavailable to the closed-hearted, that makes these people so strong in their vulnerability.

All I know is, in these past few years I’ve reclaimed my heart.  It is important to me to be open-hearted, though I am not always good at it. I have a short fuse, am stubborn as all get-out, and this tends to snap my heart shut in reflex. The good news is it always opens a tiny bit immediately afterward. The door slams but doesn't latch.. it cracks itself open again. Usually what follows the most angry statement from my lips, are tears. I have to slam the door to see that a door needs opening.

Is my heart broken? Yes. It was broken yesterday, it will be later today, and most assuredly, if not tomorrow, then it will be again the day after.

And this a blessing, because by breaking over and over again, it simply means it's a heart that heals, over and over again. It's instinct to love and break and heal and love again is so strong, it keeps leading me back for more.

It heals me, it heals itself; it can heal the world. Count on it.