I could hear your heartbeat

Before... when I heard the word heartbeat, I imagined something like this:

DUK dukk DUK dukk DUK dukk DUK dukk DUK dukk DUK dukk
Along with this auditory imagination, that glowy like that jumped up, then fell a little below the median then continued on the flat for a while before jumping again, also accompanied- almost always.

We've all heard the heartbeat thousands of times. When hugging someone close, or at least versions of it - in songs, in medical dramas, in thrillers, in cop dramas... various sources. And as someone who watches plenty of most of the above, I assumed that I knew the beating heart very well.
I was a student of biology after all; we were taught the process of the heart beat in detail!

None of this years of assumed awareness, nothing prepared me for how I'd feel when I actually heard a real heartbeat.

Not long ago, a cousin of mine, who so happens to be a student of medicine, happened to have his stethoscope in his back. Looking at my excited face, he urged me to try it out.
I first tried to listen to my sister's heartbeat. Being a novice, I heard nothing. Nothing apart from my sister shrieking in her most dramatic tone; "You're saying I don't have a heart? Oh noooooooooooo!"
My cousin, took the chest piece of the stethoscope and placed it on his own chest.

In word, it was amazing!

In many; It was an organ... amidst gushing blood and sturdy muscles. It sounded vaguely muffled and underwater. But so very real, and so much closer.

I've never felt more alive, and in touch with my body that the moment when I got to hear my own heartbeat after that. That feeling is indescribably incredible!

I've always said that I wanted a tall guy for myself. The secret reason, I've been to embarrassed to admit is that I like to hear the person's heartbeat when I hug them. A long time back, every morning; as soon as I woke up, I would groggily walk to the kitchen. My mom would be there cooking, facing the stoves (obviously ;) ) And I would hug her from the back, for a minute or two, till I wanted to properly wake up. Most of my waking up memories are in the kitchen, rather than on the bed.
It was the perfect way to wake up... listening to her soft and steady heartbeat, engulfed in mommy smell.

At one point, I used to wonder why the symbol of the heart was so popular.
It was probably enthralled and awestruck people like me who made the heart oh-so-famous after listening to it close up. But you know what? I think it's worth it :P

-
Love with all my heart,
Yours truly :)