Heart Surgery

So my ex's new girlfriend and I aren't the best of friends and we don't really know each other all that well.  Two days ago she sent me a message because she had a very intense dream and I was in it.  What's so crazy about this is I've been feeling this pain in my heart due to lack of crushy blushy love in my life.  Shawn Christie all but destroyed my ability to open up with guys.  I'm lonely, but I want and deserve something amazing and beautiful.  That's what I have to offer.  It's not too much to hope for I think.  I have been hurting while my friends are breaking up all around me.  This dream is riddled with symbolism.  I feel the universe is telling me to open up and free my heart.  I am not sure what it takes for me to get to that place in my heart, but this interaction with her is a good start.

I took part of my day off from work today because I felt particularly tired. I decided to nap, which I rarely do. During that nap, I had one of the most intense dreams I can remember. You were in it, and I think you need to hear what happened.

You were a heart surgeon and I was your first assist. My job was to stand beside you during open-heart surgeries and hand you tools and sometimes correct you if you were about to make a critical error. Our scrubs were bright blue and we had surgical masks hanging casually around our necks. It was a group of 12 people, you and I included, and we were all scrubbing up for a heart transplant.

Often, when a donor heart arrives, the cardiothoracic team refers to it as Dr. (insert last name here)’s heart.

A deliveryman (UPS? FedEx? Who the fuck delivers organs?) barges in to the surgery suite, and shoves a box into the hands of a random nurse. After getting over the initial shock of a non-sterile intruder, you outstretch your clean, wet hands towards it.

“That’s mine,” you say sternly, “give it to me.”

The nurse hesitantly obeys, and you rip the package open revealing a human heart. We all stand there looking at it, half in awe, half in horror of the possible contamination. You reach down and pick it up, clutching it in your bare hands.

Then you sink your teeth into it.

You take HUGE, slow bites out of it. It seemed like you hadn’t eaten in 3 months, and this heart was the first bit of food you’d encountered. What was so shocking, though, was the blood. With each bite, BRIGHT red, freshly oxygenated blood poured from every coronary artery. It seeped between your fingers and ran down your forearms. It covered your face and neck. There was a puddle collecting on the floor.

The rest of the cardiothoracic team just stood there, shocked. Finally, I stopped you.

“Doctor, what the FUCK are you doing to your heart?”

You broke down after that. You began sobbing, and even put your face in your bloody hands.

“I fix people’s hearts. That’s my job,” you answered.

You peered at the mangled, half eaten heart now resting on the floor.

“Look at my heart now. Who is going to fix this?”

The rest of my dreaming was completely nonsensical, so I’ll leave it out.