I write about fear and love and emotional vulnerability because those things are easy for me. They are getting a lot of attention in the media, and the new thing is to be brave in our feelings. And I think this is great. We are making space to view courage differently, we are saying that it's OK not to be perfect and all glued together. We are making room for community and reaching out and holding on to each other when the going gets tough.
I am trying, to connect in this way. I am trying, to be OK. And I am finding, that it is very very hard.
Because what I am learning as I feel the fear and do it anyway is that under my fear is a load of bitterness and rage.
Yup, I said it.
Bitterness and rage.
I want to be the "love" person. I want to be the gracious and compassionate, the hugger. The one who everyone needs and everyone adores, the one whom not a soul has something bad to say about.
I want to be wholesome and steady and pure.
And instead, I find myself dirty and cranky and side-eyeing the crap out of everyone who comes near me.
I find myself jumping when someone leans in for a hug unexpectedly, and cringing when neediness rears its head. I hear myself saying things I don't like, doing things I don't respect. I wake up in a bed of self-loathing and regret.
I wake up stuck.
I've seemed to have lost the meaning of grace, for both myself and others. It's like I've misplaced it, or like it never existed to begin with. I've seen grace, I know what it looks like. I would even say that much grace has been extended to me, with open and forgiving hands.
It's just that I haven't managed to accept it.
We know grace. We are supposed to live it. And I think I practice it, or at least try to. I know that I can have compassion for the hurting, love for those in need.
But at the end of the day, grace has not found a steady home in my heart.
It lingers, at the door, waiting patiently to be let in. And I, like a faithful hostess, refuse the company until I can have the place a little more together.
Being open and vulnerable and honest is hard, but actually believing that you are still valuable in the midst of that is harder.
It's impossible, sometimes.
To fully acknowledge and lean into your own goodness.
To believe in the power of grace.
Because we say we do, but then delegate our self-love to a corner and tell it in so many words that is is not welcome here.
That we are not worthy.
That our bad stuff outweighs the good.
We tell ourselves this over an over, and we tell ourselves that we are incapable of change.
That we are not loving enough, happy enough, stable enough.
That we are not enough to make someone stay, but surely enough to make someone leave.
And we buy into this story until it becomes the only one in our head, until we think it's the only one worth telling.
But it's not.
It's the wrong part of the story.
The real story is that love is not performance-laden.
The real story is the one of grace.
The grace we are refusing to accept for ourselves, but quickly hand to others.
Or, the grace we haven't internalized, and thus cannot externalize it to others.
And this makes us bitter. Angry even.
But today, today it must stop.
We must know grace to know our self-worth.
We must believe that we are accepted and loved, we must know this first before we can give it to others.
We cannot make others feel that which we have not experienced.
Grace.
Don't give up on it.
Don't give up on yourself.
You are worthy despite your bitter and aching heart.
And grace?
It's waiting, just outside your door.
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