Perspective.



Perspective.

Perspective of life, of love. 

We all grow into these human beings, these people who want things and feel things and need things. We put our oddities together and bind our lives together, whether it's with bailing twine or gold, we bind them just the same. 

I most honestly always have trouble showing how I really feel to the world; I always feel as if I will be received in the wrong way, seen in the wrong light, caught in a vulnerable moment where  I am weak, where someone can point and laugh or think lowly of me because I could have done it better.
My heart is always swimming in the undercurrent of my life, but few people actually want to see my vulnerability. 

    And so the truth is I paint a picture of myself to the world that is not accurate to who I actually am; that girl is brighter and happier, a little more humbled, a little more sepia toned, a little more golden and a little more gray. 
     I don't know why I feel I have to show her off, rather than my own skin, which is freckled and flawed and burns easily in the summer sun; but somehow the fear in me rises, that I will disappoint, or loose people's affection if I run the messy and confused course of my own life publicly, and this frightens me into a way of being seen that for me is fraught with dis-authenticity. 
Today, I'm going to write what I feel, not because it's important for you to know, but because it's important for me to say it.

This past year has been a crazy one, but the marker of a full year has come to a close. Yesterday, marks one year since my Ex-Boyfriend and I broke up. This past year, my 20, was full of adventures and mishaps and ups and downs- most definitely the largest of my life.

 There are times when regret over takes me and I am consumed with doubt, that perhaps I am taking the wrong path for my own soul; but in all honesty I am not really regretful for this past year. 
I have learned so much. So incredible much. About myself, and who I want to be and subsequently choose to be; about the ways of other people, they way they function and deal and need. 
     I have learned about being a fool, about being naive and childish; I have discovered about grace, in a way that has touched my life so deeply and so irreversibly, and even in all my blunderings and desperately holding onto higher standards for myself (the kind that aren't really humanly possible, I might add) I have also surprised myself and expanded and grown into someone my childhood self would be proud of. 

I have learned a lot about love, and my realizations spark this:
     Love is something different, something special beyond the rules of what we call life. 

Love is illumination into the dark parts of ourselves, if we have the courage to let it. 

     I have spent time being jaded by love, being in love, and being broken hearted, because of love. I know that to give love is the most freeing thing when you can unhitch your expectations and fears from that person and that outcome. I also know that to share in love, to wrap it around each other freely and swim in it together, is the most comfortable and glorious thing I have ever known.
     
I know that love takes time, it takes trust and it takes vulnerability of the acutest kind.
I know that not everyone fits. I know that love is to be treasured, at least for me, it is.
 I know that it takes courage to stand in love and banish the fear that always speaks of potential pain, of potential ruin. 
And even after this past year, where my heart has been broken and re-healed and re-walled and re-half opened again, I know, deep down, I still really believe in love.
When my ex-boyfriend and I broke up last year, we did so, so we could each find ourselves.  So that we could explore into the dark corners of ourselves freely, as we had been too held by fear to do so together.
 
It's been a long year. 

I have discovered many things, things I always wondered and wanted, the freedom to be a little bit crazy, the freedom to say yes and make choices all my own, I discovered the passion I hold for the one I love, and the fact that not everyone holds the same for me, in fact, that very few do. 
I found that I really like monogamy and that I don't want to date several men at once, something good to get right out of the gate.
     I found a deep respect for my ex and the way he loved me,  probably something no one else will ever do in the same way. 
     I discovered the respect it takes for love. I found that when I lost my own self recognition, self respect, and trust, no one else wanted to give it to me. I have to be the one to love myself the most, I have to respect myself enough to let someone love me, but not just anyone. I have to respect myself enough to love myself, without which I could never feel anyone els's love.
I have learned about feeling so shut out from the people I love the most, and how it tears at my heart so much, how it wants to ruin me.
But I know I have many things to learn, I have to realize love comes in many shapes and sizes and times. and some days it hurts you like a quick knife dug under your ribs and other days you can forget you ever hurt, bare feet dancing together in the sun. 
I am blessed because I know about real love, I know about laying on the floor alone, in the middle of the night hearing the echoed words of Chaiah in my ear, saying that he is happy, that his plans bring joy for him and his new girlfriend is sweet to him, I know the joy of hearing those words from someone I still love so dearly, those words bringing joy to me because even though it's not me in his arms, and somedays I still so wish it were, His happiness makes my pain worth it, because I know that my love for him is bigger than my body. It is real deep, all encompassing love.
I know that he will probably never read these words, and never know the depths I have plumbed to try 
and rescue myself from this.

But if you, Chaiah, ever do read these words. Know that I love you, now and forever and that I wish I could have known how incredible we were, when we sill had time and whole hearts. I thank you for all you have shown me and all you have given into my life and my heart, making me a much richer and deeper person because of you.

The house is quiet as I write this, my soul settling into the cadence of the words. There are yellow flowers on the table and the window frames a cobalt sky. I have dwelt in a misery, a pond scum of existence, fleeing my pain, and fumbling in the dark with loneliness, for many months now- coming up for air every now and again, but being pulled back down into those depths and not knowing how to ask for help- I have been numb and so full of anguish I thought I might throw up. I have been sick with the after math of love, but more so, I have been sick with the absence of my life. I stopped believing the best for myself, I stopped believing in myself at all. 
    
 I am so blessed to have astounding friends who, yesterday, at different times spoke with words like daggers, like sun flowers, like honey sinking around me, down the phone line they came, reminding me. 
Words sank through my walls, my screens, my careful borders. They tipped their gold into me until I was overfilled, overflowing and tears warped their ways down my face. Because they spoke of a truth I have been so terrified to face. The one where I'm okay. The one where I am doing well, and growing and learning and loving, even though it's different, even though I'm not tied, even though I don't have anything epic to show for where my life is or is going. Even though I have fear and insecurities I didn't used to, I also have wisdom. God spoke through my friends voices yesterday, helping me believe again in life, in my life and the joy I can deserve. 
Thank you to all my friends who have put up with me and my tears and my weepiness and my depression and my fear. Thank you so much. Thank you for hanging around, when I needed you most and couldn't even ask you for it. Thank you for loving me, even when I felt so weak and so damn vulnerable. You are so deeply in my heart.
So this is where I am today, who knows where I will be tomorrow, or next week, perhaps the pond scum will suck me under once again, but I am feeling the light and the love of real friends who are not fair whether. Even with distance, even with separate and other lives. I don't feel so alone, when I can reach out and feel you.
It's been one hell of a crazy year. My 20.  Here's to the next one. May it bring it's lessons with kindness, and may I learn I don't have to be perfect or sure in everything I do. May it continue the healing of my heart and the brewing of my self, in the depths of hope and strength and vulnerable courage.
With so much gratitude, a little fear and a lot of love, 
The girl with the gray-green eyes and the dirty bare feet. Until next we meet.

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