He asks, " Describe yourself." She answers, "I'm strong." He asks, "Why?" This is what she says :
"I have an opinion about everything. I do not always voice it but it is there. My mind knows what is right and what is wrong. It may not always agree with what is socially accepted, but none the less it knows. It is rigid and unmoving and the small things that taunt everybody else just hit its hard shell and rebound. It doesn't flutter around the place like my heart. It is those opinions that make me strong. I have straight cut ideas about things. No ifs and buts. However, I have always believed that there is a strong connection between the mind and the heart. Even though both are very different things, I like to believe for the sake of simplicity that there is one string that connects the two. The mind is like a grandfather. It has lived its life and it knows what is right and what is wrong. It is prudent and it has a motive behind everything it does. The mind doesn't wander around, it doesn't play games and thus it guides my life. The heart is like a young child, carefree and innocent. It makes decisions without thinking about the consequences. It laughs and smiles and makes people fall in love with it. This is it's strongest asset, for even an old man who has faced hardships in life will fall for the charm of a child. This is when the heart wins. And this is when we make decisions without thinking or without looking; this is when we become children again."
Judgement flits across his face. Just before he makes his final decision, he changes his mind. He seems intrigued. He wants to know more before he decides. He asks "Do you never listen to your heart?"
She smiles. "Sometimes I am tired of being strong. Or sometimes I just want to be rebellious. Sometimes I just let go. Then I just close the eyes of my mind, tell the old man to hold the hand of the child and let it take him wherever it wants to go. This is when I listen to my heart."
He asks, "Why don't you do this all the time?"
"Because the heart is too uncertain. Too busy in it's own world it might forget it's guiding an old man. What if the old man trips and falls? What if it gets hurt? Then what if I get hurt? What happens then?"
He asks, "Are you scared?"
She replies, "I am."
A stony expression appears on his face. "Then how do you call yourself strong?"
She looks him straight in the eye and says "Because I can suppress that fear. I don't let it control me. I don't put myself in a position where I do not know what to do because I don't know where I am. I don't like being vulnerable. And I am not easy to influence.
I don't regret a lot of decisions I have made in my life, so I'm going right somewhere, aren't I?"
