Hard

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.

Friendship

Friendships end.

That is a reality in life.

Some friendships end because of time and distance. Some end because of a conflict. Some folks just drift away from one another until the friendships, organically, dissolves. Other friendships are ended by conscious decision, while others simply fade away and bosom buddies, when next they meet, are near strangers.

In my life, I have rarely had a friendship end. That is, until the last couple of years.

One person, important to me, ended our friendship because of simply too much history. We saw each other through deaths, rehab, relationships, murders, work crises, HIV, and sexual assaults.

Another friendship was the victim of post-pardum depression. That loss was bitter and unexpected and an unfortunate side affect of a beautiful pregnancy. This was another person with whom I had shared much, in fact, we met when we were 13, and our friendship remained vibrant for almost 17 years.

The third friendship I lost because I didn't have the space to let this person into some of my life difficulties, and that created a situation where this individual felt that I had slammed the door in his face when he tried to reach out to me. I heartily disagree with this assessment, yet, that is the reason I was given, so it is the reason I accept.

And this last, is one that I conceptually, and fundamentally don't understand.

I decided to check in with a man that I believed was my friend regarding the state of our friendship. This person happens to be the partner of the third friend that chose to end our friendship. This is man that I, quite literally, love and respect and is, I believe, a model for how one can live ones life with honesty and integrity. So, when he told me that he didn't think we were friends because “we don't see each other and we don't share anything...at least recently”, I took what he said at face value.

But I don't understand it.

For me, friendship is,plainly put, a state of being when one person cares deeply for another, their well being, and, if called, shows up in a number of ways to support and build community with another person. Sometimes showing up means physically being present. Sometimes it means being an ear on the other end of a phone call. Sometimes it means responding to an email. And sometimes it means showing up spiritually, carrying a desire and prayer for peace and joy in an other's life, even when distance keeps you from showing that love and respect in person.

There are people in my life, that are not just friends, but family, that I have not seen in years. My best friend, and older brother, Jerry Jones, is someone that I haven't seen, physically, since January 2005. Time and economics haven't been on our side in terms of seeing one another. But, whenever I have picked up the phone, he has answered. We share a love for one another. And, if that is present, then there is friendship.

Over the years, I have added friends to my community that I hold dear. Having left Minneapolis, physically, I still carry with me the friendships of so many. Many of those folks were with me at a barbecue last week. I listened to their stories, and, though I am not with them on a regular basis, if any of them called and had a need, I would do what I could from where I am to fill it. That is friendship.

My truth is that should any of the four individuals in my life that have stepped away from the friendship that we have had, have a need, I would be there to fill it if I could. I have seen too much anger, abandonment, frustration, hurt, and pain in the world. I know how those things can intercept, interrupt, and intervene in love freely given. I have, indeed, let all of those things limit or eliminate my ability to be present for those for whom I care. I respect the choice of anyone to define the limits of their relationship with another, up to and including severing that relationship. But, that does not mean that I have to cauterize my feelings or no longer appreciate the friendship we have had and the memories we made together, whether they were last week or a decade ago.

Friendship should never be ephemeral, easily given, or readily taken away. It is too valuable. And in a time of great spiritual recession, those things of lasting value are that much more precious.

Healing

Sometimes healing starts when you unintentionally, through an expression of your own pain, hurt someone that you care about. I did that last night. Because of work I need to do to heal myself, I put my relationship at risk by not handling my emotions in the way I could have. The part that kills is that I caused pain, fear, confusion, and insecurity in someone that has been, for all purposes, a consummate source of love, strength, and patience in my life. Not all of the conflict from last night was mine to carry. But that which is mine to carry I am carrying heavily. It is also telling that although I have been forgiven for my knee jerk asinine behavior, I can't figure out how to forgive myself. It isn't as dramatic as it sounds, and then again, it really is. It's so dramatic it is comic. Poor Brandon...someone loves him enough to love him through his hurt. Self-pity is a damn shame.