colors on our water hearts

(Some days you just need to write, you know?) I left the house this morning at 9:00 to drop off B at school then head directly to drop off the last of my application to grad school (!), then to another campus for the class I'm taking, then off to pick up B from school, drop her at home, over to a friend's house to help her plan for an extended hospital stay, pick up B from home and eat lunch (even though it was 3:45), off to a park to meet a different friend, and straight off to meet another friend-in-need for pizza and girl talk while our daughters play. Home late, rush B off to bed, and now just a moment to breathe.
If I look back to three years ago when we had just lived here a few months, I would be astounded at how full my life looked today. I was so overwhelmingly lonely back then and wondered if I would ever make any lasting friendships. (I'm nothing if not dramatic.) A few months ago I realized this was the first time in my adult life I could say I wasn't lonely, but I've realized that it takes a lot of energy to maintain friendships, and I am happy to expend it. I wanted my life to be full of people, and it's starting to be that way.
The point of this whole long introduction, though, is to say when you open your heart to relationships, it can be sad, because people you love experience pain. I have someone very close to me who has shut her heart off because she doesn't want to feel sad when those close to her experience pain. I think that is a very sad way to live (and it has caused me a great deal of pain trying to be close to this person). Today I had heavy boots thinking of all the people in my life who are suffering in some way. Today alone I spoke with three very dear friends about very traumatic things happening in their lives. It makes my heart hurt. But I really think that's what life is: forging these personal bonds where we care for and love each other, feeling each other's pain and finding ways to provide strength and comfort. There is so much-- too much-- sadness and pain in this world. The least we can do is link our hearts and feel it together. Does the pain act like food coloring dropped into hearts made of water? The more hearts we can add to feel the pain together, the more the pain is diluted?