90 days……. she’ll love you if you love her like that……now the day bleeds into night fall…..she’ll love you if you love her like that.
Music begins my days and the songs speak to me. I realized this morning I’m in love again. This time I’m in love with my whole life and myself. I get it now. What being still means because now I can see my whole life and all my connections and my ability to carry on and connect beautifully with others, the world, and myself.
I get it now.
I’m on my front porch and the other chair isn’t lonely or empty, it’s often filled by some of the strongest and most beautiful people. The kind I aspire to be and am lucky to love. My life is surrounded by those that get it.
For the last 5 years or so I’ve been rebirthing myself. Contained in the watery womb that is my bath. And now I’m outside. I’m outside with the world, standing in all that I am. The musicians and authors they are by my side. They are my ancestors. Loyal brave and true they surround me with the art they have had the fortitude to get out into the world. They are encouraging me.
“You gotta get up and try”
And I always do.
That’s beautiful
I cry on my front porch in the mornings. I cry for the pain in the world and for the beauty. Grief is beautiful it means we have tried for something, and when it doesn’t work out it doesn’t mean we aren’t enough. It means we had the courage to try for something we wanted. The courage to pursue our dreams.
This morning I thought deeply about my beautiful friend’s birthday. About how strong she’s had to be and how her light still shines through the personal darkness she navigates. We are kindreds. Both vibrating with anxiety to the point it consumes. Wounds we were left with. Bullet holes bleeding, and still we rise.
She posted a photo with her grandparents from her birthday dinner last night and I could see the little girl there. The one who just wanted to be celebrated and seen. The thing we all desire. And it broke me open to seeing everyone’s child, the child in everyone just wanting to know who they are and what to do with themselves in the world.
Who am I? What is my purpose? Will I be loved? Will I be safe?
This finally feels like home. My house isn’t not a home because I’m not sharing the experience with a partner. My house is a home because I belong here. I am home. My home.
I can finally see the beauty in the flowers, in everything, in my own life, not just others, desperately wanting them to see too, so that can be a shared experience.
My whole life I was so driven and focused on obtaining this one main thing I thought would make me safe and happy, but discounting me and everything I am. Unless I was healing I didn’t know where I fit in the equation. Unless I was useful.
Now all my connections are important, no tunnel vision, not just one at a time. I can finally appreciate me for the way that I connect to others, and now to myself too.
My son didn’t do the dishes last night though he was reminded and asked and this morning I thought on the porch of how many times I’ve harshly pushed, asked him why he didn’t do them, not if he’s ok. Not a hug. Not warmth. Because that was my relationship with myself, because that was the relationship I was given from the cards I was dealt. It’s taken my whole life to get it. To understand the power of are you ok? How are you doing ? How was your day? Are you connected? Do you need something? The dishes can wait. They are not the most important thing. But that is what I knew how to do. My model my template. It’s as far as I could get.
Until now……
From now on…..
I literally couldn’t get myself to open warmly and hug and ask those things. Inside I’m screaming to do that, but I get stuck inside myself. In Pinks documentary she said a line, about how she wishes she could reach inside herself and give that little girl a hug. This is why the rebirth was needed.
Over the past year and a half I’ve been on a mission to reclaim that little girl. I didn’t know that was my mission. I thought it was something else. So often life is like that. We misunderstand. So my kid can connect with my kids. So I could replace harsh drive with enthusiasm for living. Warmth. Everything I accuse are only things I couldn’t find in myself.
Always disconnected with me, always begging for connection with someone else. Thinking that would crack the code and it never did. How many times do I need to crack open I thought? How much more breaking.
Breaking let’s the light in. You can hear all the quotes and read all the memes but in my experience you can’t embody the experience until you’ve walked the path yourself.
So this morning I’m outside, not locked inside myself. I’m in the light. I am the light. I’m in the world and I love everything. In love with myself (I was typing my life and it changed it to that and I left it).
I’m not afraid my existence is a burden any longer. I won’t live that way anymore. I am here and I have a voice and a right to exist. I won’t hide for hours in the bathtub trying to figure out how to fix what is broken. I don’t need to anymore. We aren’t there anymore.
Once you grow you can’t go back. One could say why would you want to, but of course it’s tempting because being new and open and ready can sometimes feel an overwhelming responsibility. I was overwhelmingly responsible for everything during my childhood. I get it now.
Now I am responsible to myself to allow myself to exist in all the light I have to offer and to enjoy that.
My heart is bursting with love and I don’t need to aim the arrow at anyone to feel safe and wanted. I can be love. And I already have love and I already am love.
I get it now. And this morning my heart felt so much love for everyone that has ever dared to love, and for everyone who has ever grieved anything, because grieving isn’t easy. It hurts to be human.
The people we connect with makes the hurt worthwhile.
It’s not the stuff, the milestones, the achievements. It’s always about connections. We try to make meaning and know what that is, we try to control. We beg to be enough, belong, to be seen. And those things are our natural birthright.
We have to claim that.
If we have shared a journey I love you. For your strength, your pain, your resilience, your harder moments. I love it all.
I have always loved life itself, and life is the unreliable narrator, but never again will I tell a story or believe one that hurts me. Not for long anyway because after all
I am human….