beat 270 - vitality

"I always challenge my heart to be as open and understanding as possible. As it's only natural to have scars and build walls from past experiences. I try to keep my heart from just becoming a blob of scar tissue. I let it feel true emotions, accept those emotions, and move forward. So that a past experience will not hinder or block a new one. If someone betrays me, I may lose trust in that person...but I don't let my heart lose the ability to ever trust again. If my heart feels like it's given enough love it could ever possibly give, I meet a new person and embrace new friendships with open arms. I try my best to retain the innocence of curiosity and risk taking.


My heart is full of love, full of happiness, full of hope and even full of hurt. I look at each of my experiences as a gift...and that's why I feel so overwhelmingly grateful in my life."


-Angelina Kim, Washington, DC
Founder of Passion Co-Pilot

beat 269 - lyrical

"My heart is a string quartet. Sometimes it's playing softly and I forget it's there. Right now it's: ƒƒƒƒ.  A crescendo to a blastissimo - swelling with love, loss and uncertainty. Overwhelmingly full, erratic and close to bursting."


-Maj Anya DeBear, Brooklyn, NY
ursidae new york

beat 268 - discovered

"I recently discovered the hidden side of my heart, which is full with surprises. The greatest discovery ever...and the journey will continue!"


-Jisoo Kang, NY
Art Director, Kenneth Cole

beat 267 - elegance

"I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough."


Everyday is an opportunity to live and to love. When I fell in love it was like seeing for hte very first time. No matter the outcome I am a better person because I have lived and loved, and as a result I will improve myself everyday from here on. My heart is alive, and so overwhelmingly grateful for these opportunities. I know that I am the luckiest...even when my heart gets broken."


-Sarah Westlake, NY
Singer

beat 266 - severe

"My heart is schizophrenic only because it goes from ice cold to hot as fire really quickly. But it's always forgiving, resilient and full of love."


-Tim Bitici, NYC
fashion editor/stylist

beat 265 - seeded

"My heart is deep, well rooted and often scattered. When my heart falls in love, it falls hard. There's no in between when my heart in involved. It's all in.


My heart is in segments. The largest chunk is with my family in Illinois. Multiple pieces are on journeys with friends. The last part is living life in Brooklyn."


-Nick Eucker, Brooklyn, NY
Photographer

beat 264 - cyclical

"When I think of my heart it is not in a literal sense. I think of it like my soul. In fact, it may be the same thing really. I think of love in the same way. And I have been lucky enough to have been in love a few times in my life, and have felt love for many people, but I am not sure I ever really knew what love was until my son was born. My son is my heart."


-Greg Sorenson, Brooklyn, NY
Photographer, writer/blogger of thezinfidel.com

beat 263 - reborn

"I have put off writing this post for so long because all I had to write about my heart was aching and missing and feeling empty from loss.
I don't want my heart to be immortalized that way.
My mother passed away a year and a half ago and my heart felt nothing for so long, then it hurt so much that I was stuck in a moment in time.
I couldn't see anything before when she was sick and couldn't imagine what life would be like in the future. After sixteen months, I finally feel like I am able to remember and celebrate all of our memories together. Even more importantly my heart is excited to look ahead and see what life still has in store for me. 
It is excited for summer vacations with my husband.
It is excited to meet my nieces who will be born in just a few months.
It is excited to plan a family with my husband to see what that family portrait will look like one day.
it is excited to see what that family tree will look like since it will be very different from the one I imagined four years ago.
It is excited to see what the next chapter has written for us, and for the first time in a long time, it is not afraid. It is full of hope and love and waiting to experience everything life has in store for us in the days, weeks, months, years and decades ahead."


-Lindsay Newblatt Reitzes, Brooklyn, NY
Bryan Bantry Inc.

beat 262 - revolutionary

"My heart is in love, for the very first time."


-Shabnam Azadeh, Brooklyn, NY
Artist Representative, Kate Ryan Inc.

beat 261 - uncluttered

"My heart I try to keep clear, soft, open and honest, and when doing this I am able to fully give to myself and the people I love."


-Kim Ficaro, Brooklyn, NY
Prop Stylist

beat 260 - desiderata

"These days, my heart feels a little broken, a great love having just moved across the country. But at the same time, I have wonderful friends, an incredibly supportive family, a job I love, and I recognize that my life is very rich and blessed. So it's hard to stay down, to fully feel the effects of my wounded heart. I just remind myself that a broken heart is not the same thing as an empty heart, and in the words of my favorite poem, Desiderata by Max Ehrmann, "Be Cheerful. Strive to be happy.""


-Julie Wiencek, Los Angeles, CA
Digital Communications Manager at Wetherly Fashion Group

beat 259 - hastened

"Oooh, my heart. That's a tough one right now. It's working overtime. I just found out my wife is leaving me so I guess you can say it's messed up. It's hurt. But you gotta keep on moving, right? That's why I'm here with the kids, playing in the snow and taking my mind off it all. We all need to keep moving."


-R. Fried, NYC
Lawyer 

beat 258 - gaping

"My heart has lots of things in it. But I don't like to talk to those things because they make me very sad. Sad for my country and sad for my people. My heart lives here now but it will always be at home."


-Sut El Baz, Astoria, Queens originally from Egypt
Taxi driver and father of 4

beat 257 - shattered

"My heart is damaged. It's been through a couple wars in the last couple months. I lost the love of my life, for selfish reasons of my own, and I cannot get him back no matter what I do. I find strength in healing through my friends and family, I never realized how much parents love you until you've been through so much and they will never stop loving you no matter what. Which kills my heart even more. I was so young when he and I got married and I kept replaying my age over again in my head. And so it freaked me out that I had never experienced things, but it took this broken heart, this experience, for me to realize just how much I love him and exactly what he really means to me. Which is the hardest part, to have to lose someone in order to learn your love for them. It's almost not fair. I'm sad to say I had to experience it to realize how my selfishness ruined love. He was my first everything, my first love, everything. I feel empty. I've been exposed to so much in such a quick amount of time, so I just feel like the pain will be with me for a long time, it's not going anywhere. I wake up in the middle of the night and I think, my mind wont stop racing. My heart feels shattered, my heart doesn't want to trust people. I feel lost."

-Jessica Lara, California

beat 256 - cultivate

"My heart is full of a lot of love. For life, for people. I'm in a really good place now. My heart is like a phoenix rising from the ashes...I had a really rough year last year around this time and now I'm in a much better place, I'm more clear headed. It took getting knocked down to get where I am now. Had I just been fine, it never would have happened, I never would have learned the lessons I've learned. I never would have seen how to really appreciate other people and all the great things I have and myself, I learned to love myself. I feel really fortunate for where I am now.


-Avery Fletcher, NYC
Organic Avenue

beat 255 - straight

"Thank God my heart is going strong. I have love, love forever. For me and my wife. We've been together for over 40 years, my first son is 39 and now he has love. That's what makes my heart keep going, cause there's love in my family and they're all great because they got it. Love is everything and people forget that in this city when it's all moving so fast. People forget to stop and listen and take part in the love rather than the hustle. I get it, don't get me wrong, but sometimes we gotta realize this life is for livin' not workin'."


-Delano Brown, Queens
Taxi driver

beat 254 - resilient

"It's soft and strong. Just when I think it's broken for good, it puts itself together again."


-Sophie Schulte-Hillen, NYC and Germany

beat 253 - exemplar

"Nothing or nobody talks to me more than my heart does. When in a dilemma between my heart and my mind, my heart always wins, reminding me of the human being that I am. A person who should always try to live a life of compassion, understanding and most importantly a life of love. Avoir un coeur c'est avoir de l'amour, avoir de l'amour c'est avoir la vie."


-Cesar Badji, Milwaukee 
Social Worker

beat 252 - wistful

"There is a quote from a song that has a very special meaning to me. 
'Daydreamer sitting on the seat, soaking up the sun. He is a real lover of making up the past, and feeling up his girl like he's never felt her figure before.'

It describes a very beautiful way of love and reminds me of a special time in my life."

-Signe Stampe, NYC by way of Denmark

Fashion student

beat 251 - parvenue

"I've finally met The One. He's the first and only man I've ever said 'I love you' to."


-Vita Feldman, NYC
Buyer

beat 250 - grateful

"My heart is full of love. Love for being alive, love for this world. And for the gratitude of loving someone else more than yourself. I feel so fortunate that I can look at these gorgeous sites around me and they just stop my heart. My heart races with the privilege of just being alive."


-Monica Frieda Heller, NYC
Esthetic Specialist, Pulse Skincare Center

beat 249 - lived

"Oooh, it's a bad heart. Well that's what the doctor told me. It may be a bad heart but my heart is love. Every time I do something, I do it with love. I never get angry, never holler, I've never spank my kids. I had a very good life with a husband that I never fought with. We never swore at each other, it was always a very strong respect. We were together for 59 and a half years. I cannot believe it. Or that I'm already 95 years old. Only when I get up from my seat do I believe my age. Oh and now I'm getting wrinkles. Agh. Truth is, I could go at any minute. They told me to wear this pendant thing, in case of an emergency. I don't wear it. If your gonna go, your gonna go. If your time is up, it's up. But the longer you live, the more you have to do. I have things I haven't completed here yet, that's why I'm still around. So I go and I do. I shop, volunteer, I don't bother anyone. 
My husband and I had a lovely life. I still have all his love letter from when he was in the war. I gave them to my granddaughter because I was going to destroy them but someone stopped me. I didn't want anyone to see them, it's my private life. We had our secrets, that's what I like. You know, when my husband was in the service he'd write me letters and tell me he'd take me to Europe when he returned, he said it was a wonderful place. And you know, he did. We went all over the place, just us and it was a grand time. I've seen all the countries. But it was home that was wonderful with him...every Sunday he'd go to the market and buy cheese and half a pound of ham, a newspaper and Entenmann's cake. Then he'd buy a rose. He didn't have to say he loved me. It was the thing he'd do. I knew it.
 Can I tell you something? I love bingo. Oh how I love it."


-Palma, Port Chester, NY

beat 248 - quieted

"S vidu i ne dogadaeshsya naskol'ko, iskrennee i chestnoe. Sama sebe udivlyayus."


-Yasmina Muratovich, Moscow
Model with One Management

beat 247 - complete

"When you asked me to 'tell you something about my heart' I really thought that it would be easy. Then I got to thinking about all of the dimensions of my heart and it got more complex.


Half of my heart worries, is mothering, sometimes to a fault - and sometimes I love so fiercely and deeply that it is too much. My heart doesn't want others to experience pain, hurt or longing. I can that love, some says it is unhealthy...but I do know that my heart is a good friend, loving wife, caring sibling/daughter, and would do anything to be there for those that are "mine."


The other half of my heart is completely content as it has found it's twin. Another heart to go through life's joys and sadness...a heart that knows me better than I know myself.


Simply put? My heart is mothering, joyful, caring and deeply loved - but most importantly, even with all of it's faults, it is complete."


-Kris Schoels, Weehawken, NJ
blogger: Young Married Chic

beat 246 - nurture

"My heart is sprouting with renewed love. I recently eloped with my boyfriend of five years. We had a ceremony at a beautiful Japanese inn overlooking a small pond. It started to rain as we began our ceremony and ended just as we completed our vows - as if the rain came to nourish the seeds of our commitment to one another. Though I didn't expect to feel any different after marriage, there is a subtle yet profound shift that makes my heart full and at peace."


-Sybil Dessau, NYC

beat 245 - advancing

"My heart is a work in progress."


-Jen Monzon, Brooklyn, NY
Jewelry designer, stylist

beat 244 - contented

"My heart is a crazy jellyfish that I used to be wary of, but as I've grown older I've learned to trust and follow. A while ago, with some trepidation, I gave it to a tall, handsome boy. For the past four years he has taken care of and protected it, a marvel that - when I think about it - still makes it skip a beat."


-Bree McKenney, NYC

beat 243 - engrained

"The quote behind my hearts is: 'Two hearts, two minds, in time did find one love, one aim, two paths are the same. Hold fast...and love will last."


-Emily King, NY