The above-average heart.

There, it beats.

Last week, I tried to calculate how many times, approximately, my heart beats in a day.  With the assistance of Sandy—the kind technician who sat with me for nearly an hour and pointed out my four distinct chambers and valves and talked me through the strange and fascinating swooshing sounds coming out of the monitor beside me—we attempted to do the multiplication in our heads.

I told her I was never very good at math.

She pressed the cold wand deeper into my skin, and I kept my eyes fixed on the ceiling, silent, still a little scared and desperate for the distraction of conversation.  She offered, “Well, the average heart beats about 100,000 times a day.  But that’s based on the average resting heart rate of 70.  Your resting heart rate this entire time has been about 45.”

She paused.  I processed.

 And then she said, softly, “So, you’re just beating less than average, honey.  And that’s okay.”

I wanted to roll my head and look at her and snap, “Really?  Less than average is okay in this situation?  In matters of the heart?!”

Of course I didn’t say that.  Please.  I don’t do dramatic when I’m in the moment.  I do dramatic after.  I do dramatic in the comfort and privacy of my car while I’m alone or on the phone with my mother, who’s probably frantic with worry and inundated with e-mails and voicemails and appointments.  (Lo siento, mi madre…)

Also?  I didn’t really want to elevate any system in my body in that present moment, least of all my heart.

In fairness, Sandy did go on to explain that actually my resting heart rate was really very healthy, that my heart was such a strong, well-conditioned, well-exercised muscle that it was just more efficient in how it pumped blood through my body and, consequently, how often.  Marathoners can have resting heart rates down in the 30s, she noted.

Given my lack of response, she murmured, “That’s probably where you go when you sleep.”

I laid there, still, silent, thoughts pumping through my brain a hell of a lot faster than the blood pumping through my heart.

Thought one:  Well, this is fitting, that I should have a marathon heart, given the long, exhausting, gruelling run I’ve had these last many months.

Thought two:  And some people say yoga isn’t enough of a cardiovascular workout!  Righhhtt…  Well, guess this bodes well for the triathlon I just signed up for!

Thought three:  If my heart is so damn strong, why do I feel so pathetically weak right now?

Thought four:  What’s wrong with me?

Thought five:  Shit, this is taking a lot longer than I’d anticipated.

Thought six:  I want to ask my father if he learned his resting heart rate when he had an ultrasound and found his own leaky valve.

Thought seven:  There.  It beats.  I can hear it; I can feel it.

 Sandy and I didn’t talk much after we’d completed our calculations.  In a hurried frenzy, I had drilled her with all my questions in the first 20 minutes, and she had answered what she could.  Once, she asked me to turn onto my side.  And then, onto my back again, so she could push the gelled wand into my throat and then into my abdomen, hard, like a hand, just above my belly button.  My heart thumped inside the monitor screen, dutifully, capably, a notch quicker.  The minutes ticked past.  A cell phone out in the waiting room rang, repeatedly, unanswered.

“Well.  That’s it.”  Sandy rolled her chair away, standing, pulling off her latex gloves.  “You can get dressed.”

My first instinct was to cover my bare chest.  My second instinct was to start sobbing.  (Suppression is a wondrous thing.)  My third instinct was to mind my manners, and so I said, too loudly, “Thank you so much.  Really.  You made this so much more bearable.”

Sandy gave me that gentle smile again.  Encouraged, I kept going:  “Yeah, really, thank you.  I just…  Do I…  Do I need to talk to anyone at the front desk?  I mean, do I need to pay anything?   And should I give this office a call or will you call me?  Or, actually, should I follow up with my GP?  I’m just, you know, wondering about next steps.”

I paused.  Sandy stared.

Not able to help myself, I blurted out, “What do I do?”  Never mind that I was still only partially clothed, laying on a hospital bed way too short for my long legs, awkwardly propped up on one elbow, and unmistakably on the verge of experiencing a true watershed moment in front of a total stranger.

Sandy nodded, warmly, sympathetically, and patted my robed knee.  “Get dressed,” she repeated.  “And go home.  You’re all set.  There is nothing more you need to do.”

The door clicked close.

As I buttoned my blouse and zipped up my boots, my head and my heart battled, one striving to find the literal, logical translation of what had just occurred and the other already writing these words.

Rationally, I was relieved.  Sandy hadn’t found some gaping, ghastly hole.  They didn’t need to slice me open right then and there and patch me up.  My valves, however oddly they seemed to flip and flop, were actually working quite well. On the surface, everything—really, everything—looked fine, healthy, normal.

But, when is the heart rational?

When is the heart average?

When, in the throes of any great matter, is there really nothing more you can do?

When— in all the times I have asked, “why” and “what’s next” and, worst of all, “what do I do”—has the response ever been as simple as, “You’re all set”?

Never.

And maybe that’s why I don’t yet trust that everything really is “fine, healthy, normal.”  Don’t get me wrong, I am far from a hypochondriac.  I do believe what I saw and heard on that monitor.  But, I know there is a problem, even if it didn’t show up on screen, even if it wasn’t detected in an EKG print out.  I know something isn’t quite…right.  That’s a hard and scary truth to face.

But, there—it beats.  I can feel it, minute upon minute.

And I know I would rather face what’s hard and scary than pretend otherwise.  I know I owe my self that much.  I am, after all, my parent’s daughter.  And I believe it is the sweaty, determined struggle—for answers, for truth, for peace—that takes us beyond the average and into the amazing.  It is the unwillingness to settle, the unwillingness to ignore what is so plain, so undeniably uncomplicated.

I refuse to turn my head.  I refuse not to listen.  I cannot push away reality.

Because, there, deep within me, I believe it is the fight for and belief in and devotion to what we truly deserve and need that pushes us through and past the throes of all the great heartaches, rational or otherwise.

It is my uncompromising opinion that nothing—nothing—in my life should be average.

Least of all, my heart.