There is a beautiful Sara Bareilles song that has a lyric that says, "I'm gonna love you and maybe it's gonna last this time, but I am gonna love you, you never have to ask, 'Till you start looking back, I wouldn't need a second chance."
This is how I live my life. This is how I love my life. If I love you. Friend, lover, family, hope to be lover, lover of spirit, lover without admittance, complicated lover, this is my truth. This is my reality. THIS is my beautiful.
Love shouldn't be hard. Actually, love is NEVER hard.
Let me be clear. Hard and complicated aren't the same damn thing. Love is often complicated. Love is often hurtful. Love often comes at the wrong damn time in the wrong damn place. Sometimes it comes in the wrong damn body (note: Nicole Zajkowski nee Harris who I would have married at 18 but she was born in the right body for her, the right spirit for me, but her body and my desire didn't match). Love sometimes requires work. Love often requires bravery. Love is always laced with fear. As bell hooks once said, "To risk great love is to risk great hurt." Without risking being absolutely and completely ripped apart and devastated you can NEVER and will NEVER have that passionate, destructive, transformative, healing, and potentially deadly love that we all deserve. It's our fears that keep us from it not our capability.
I know what it means to run screaming from the possibility of happiness, from an inkling of love, from the hint that someone may actually give me what I DESERVE, what we all deserve.
God Bless the HIV virus. God Bless being a rape survivor. God bless being a child of intense and traumatic abuse. God Bless having grown up wondering if I would have dinner. God bless racism. God bless heterosexism. God bless addiction. God bless any and every oppression that I have survived.
Because if I have survived to almost 35 in the skin, spirit, and body in which I live and the history that I carry, then motherfuck if I will ever run AWAY from happiness. If I have had the grace of God and begged, borrowed, and found the strength to beat that shit, then I WILL NEVER AGAIN RUN AWAY FROM LOVE.
In fact, I will risk everything for that passionate love that I believe is out there for all of us. I WILL risk devastating hurt, because I deserve earth shaking happiness and joy of the type promised in Heaven but DESERVED on Earth.
And so do all of you. Bravery isn't just about surviving the shit that comes with living, it is also required to reap the gifts, treasure and bounty that is ALSO your portion of life. Survive, but CHOOSE joy and be brave enough to risk pain in order to get it. That is what it means to truly live.
Go in.
This is how I live my life. This is how I love my life. If I love you. Friend, lover, family, hope to be lover, lover of spirit, lover without admittance, complicated lover, this is my truth. This is my reality. THIS is my beautiful.
Love shouldn't be hard. Actually, love is NEVER hard.
Let me be clear. Hard and complicated aren't the same damn thing. Love is often complicated. Love is often hurtful. Love often comes at the wrong damn time in the wrong damn place. Sometimes it comes in the wrong damn body (note: Nicole Zajkowski nee Harris who I would have married at 18 but she was born in the right body for her, the right spirit for me, but her body and my desire didn't match). Love sometimes requires work. Love often requires bravery. Love is always laced with fear. As bell hooks once said, "To risk great love is to risk great hurt." Without risking being absolutely and completely ripped apart and devastated you can NEVER and will NEVER have that passionate, destructive, transformative, healing, and potentially deadly love that we all deserve. It's our fears that keep us from it not our capability.
I know what it means to run screaming from the possibility of happiness, from an inkling of love, from the hint that someone may actually give me what I DESERVE, what we all deserve.
God Bless the HIV virus. God Bless being a rape survivor. God bless being a child of intense and traumatic abuse. God Bless having grown up wondering if I would have dinner. God bless racism. God bless heterosexism. God bless addiction. God bless any and every oppression that I have survived.
Because if I have survived to almost 35 in the skin, spirit, and body in which I live and the history that I carry, then motherfuck if I will ever run AWAY from happiness. If I have had the grace of God and begged, borrowed, and found the strength to beat that shit, then I WILL NEVER AGAIN RUN AWAY FROM LOVE.
In fact, I will risk everything for that passionate love that I believe is out there for all of us. I WILL risk devastating hurt, because I deserve earth shaking happiness and joy of the type promised in Heaven but DESERVED on Earth.
And so do all of you. Bravery isn't just about surviving the shit that comes with living, it is also required to reap the gifts, treasure and bounty that is ALSO your portion of life. Survive, but CHOOSE joy and be brave enough to risk pain in order to get it. That is what it means to truly live.
Go in.
"I WILL risk devastating hurt, because I deserve earth shaking happiness" - words I need to write on my wall and start living by.....
ReplyDeleteT
Amen and amen!
ReplyDeleteVLM