on telling the truth.

Quite often, a version of myself appears that I don't particularly like. This person is not my friend. Generally, based on how she's reacting or behaving, I want nothing to do with her. It's like I leave my body for a minute, observing with judgment from some hidden place where I don't have to connect to whatever part of me is acting out. Later, when I'm alone, I replay all the worst things that have been said to or about me just to really make sure the self-deprecation sinks in.

Disliking yourself can be a full time job.

These days, I'm tired of working the shame shift. I have no energy left to to show up to this kind of work anymore, and so I've given up.

The thoughts come. I let them. I acknowledge them with a nod. I don't act so surprised by my humanity. I hope for better days.

And this is where, I believe, my healing begins.

I am learning to tell the truth.

Here's what I know: there's a wounded part of me that reacts when triggered. Sometimes, depending on the season, that can be quite a lot. In the moment, I regress. This can look differently, depending on the day. Sometimes I have an anxiety attack. Sometimes I become really depressed. I lash out in anger, desperately cling on out of insecurity. Compulsively try and fix. Explain myself away. Push and push and push to be perfect.

I fail every time.

So I beat myself up. No one else needs to do this for me any more. Turns out I am quite skilled. But curiously enough, this does nothing for me. I wake up the next day with a dose of self-loathing and a morbid determination to do better, and the cycle starts again.

I am learning that we tend to define ourselves poorly in a misunderstanding of our pain. We often believe things about who we are that were told to us in a time when our suffering spoke the loudest, where our truest self was not able to show up at all. We often believe things that were told to us by someone else who was acting out of a wounded part, and somehow we believed them.

It helps to look at the reliability and validity of your source.

When someone is hurting, they have the potential to hurt us. In that space, our emotions let us know that something isn't quite right. Where the trouble begins, is when we start to personalize someone else's pain. We make it about our core self. Somehow, we must have caused that mood or reaction. Somehow, it's completely our fault.

Somehow, we must be as bad as we think.

And so, as life goes on, we react too. We shut down or overcompensate or become defensive. We spiral and over think and become chaotic inside. We respond to the fear that is deep within us, the fear that tells us we are unlovable and dirty and too much and not enough and that we can't ever fix it. 

That we are broken beyond repair.

But with if that part was just that....a part? What if we didn't have to define ourselves by our difficult moments? What if we could give ourselves compassion when this happens, if we could hold our hearts just a little more tenderly? What do you think would happen?

Not surprisingly, this idea is more uncomfortable than not. We worry that if we love ourselves in the middle of our mess, it is the same as giving permission for that bad girl to run wild and really tear the place down. We worry that if we love ourselves, we are somehow lying to ourselves about our identity.

We believe we must be perfect to be loved.

This is where telling the truth is so important.

There is a part of you, a part not yet healed, that responds imperfectly to what happens around you. It's not about that one moment. It's about every moment that led you to this place. We do not live in a vacuum, and neither do our emotions. We pull up things from the past, sometimes even unconsciously, and we make it about the present. Listen to me:

The absolute worst thing you can do when this happens is to shame your emotions. We cannot help what we feel and how we feel it. Blame only serves to intensify the feelings, and results in those  behavioral responses that we aren't the biggest fan of.

Who we are does not have to be defined by what we experience or act on when we are hurting. 

Telling the truth about ourselves means accepting that there are times we won't get it quite right. That we make space for the parts of us that are still healing, that we give those parts permission to speak because they want us to know they are hurting and are tired of being ignored.

Here's the thing: when we treat our emotions with kindness and respect, they respond. We find out what is really going on underneath the tide of reactivity, and we can tend to the wound without fear because we know that it is just a part. 

We can be honest with ourselves and take responsibility for our emotions, even our behaviors, because we aren't confusing them with who we are. We can believe we are capable and brave and strong and good even if our responses don't always reflect this truth.

We can believe we are still worthy even if we are acting like we are not.

We aren't prisoners to our parts anymore.

We don't have to sit in the dungeon of despair.

We can be free.

Take a breath.

Let go into the curiosity of all that we've kept ourselves from, because we were so preoccupied with fixing instead of healing, hating instead of holding.

I want to love every part of myself better.

To show up for myself, as vulnerable as it feels.

To have a positive relationship with myself.

Because the truth is, sometimes we have to go into the dark in order to bring things to the light.

We can't see them clearly otherwise.

It will take courage.

It will be hard.

But the old way isn't working anymore.

If you're like me, you have nothing to lose.

Let the sun shine on the the most secret, shame filled parts of who you are.

For in its warmth the whole world has a chance to become new again.

So do you.

Love will lead the way.

healing and hope.

Last year, I dated someone very special for about three months.

I fell in love. In all the classic, movie manufactured ways. Being with him felt a little bit like heaven, and a lot like floating dreamily through time--which really did pass in the blink of an eye. I thought I had found it, the thing, the magic everyone talks about and the music that makes your whole being sing.

And I let myself tumble head over heels, arms open, heart first into this person who so deeply cherished me.

The thing is, we are not in love for the short term. We hope for forever, and this is what causes us to run with such abandon into the soul of someone we barely know. I'm not sure I understand what exactly happens for us to trust another with this sort of intensity--to be honest, I'm not sure anyone does. What I do know is that it does happen, and that no matter how it ends, it is always a gift.

It's been three months since we broke up. It was an unusual occurrence in the history of failed relationships. The feelings were still as strong as ever, but the foundation wasn't there. We desperately wanted to make it work and yet, we couldn't. As we held hands on my bed and whispered our deepest affections to each other, we knew it was time to let go. We didn't know for how long or if we could still be friends or if we'd ever get back together. We didn't even really understand why. 

But what we did know was that something was not right, and that no matter how hard we tried we were simply two pieces of a puzzle that didn't quite fit. 

Now, you may think that since an equal amount of months has passed as the time we dated, I would be wised up and over it by now.

I am not. 

But this doesn't mean that I am empty handed, either.

I am sad, a lot of the time. Confused. I don't have the answers I would have liked and to be honest, am still not even sure what the questions should be. 

I am healing.

A note on healing:

We think of it as a nice word. A word that indicates we feel better, even good.

But while healing does lead to those things, the process is still painful. I have had several surgeries throughout my life, and each time the weeks and sometimes months after were filled with hard work, tear soaked pillow cases, and a great deal of physical suffering. 

Healing is not nice. 

It is difficult. The agony we feel on the surface is just a small fraction of what is happening underneath, and it is no different when we are heartsick. 

I have stopped asking "why" because I have found that the response does little in the face of loss. I have stopped trying to calculate what I think will happen in the future because I have found that the person I am in now can rarely imagine beauty beyond her present limitations. 

So I have settled for unwavering, unrelenting hope. 

Hope is so dangerous. It asks us to move forward when we don't know the way, to trust that all will be well when we plainly see that everything is falling apart. To believe that maybe, just maybe things will turn out better than we ever could have expected. 

But most of all, hope asks us to stay here in the moment, to fully live the life that has been brought to us on any given day. It requires us to keep loving without our beloved, to keep being enchanted by the world around us even if it doesn't include our deepest wishes. 

Even if it doesn't look like we had planned. 

Is this what I thought or even wanted my life to look like at the age of 30?

Of course not.

But each morning I wake up to the sun streaming eons of light through my window, my cat sweetly nudging me out of sleepiness to feed her, and the sound of my roommate shuffling about in the room next to mine as she readies for day. I am greeted with coffee and cold winds and crowded trains, the gesture of a stranger giving up her seat for someone who really needs it, today of all days.  The friendly smile of the security guard as I arrive at work, the quiet of my office and the familiarity of this space that has held so many secrets, so many sorrows, so much time filled with connection and joy and... 

hope.

It follows, even as it wells up within me, and it never lets me go. 

This is what it means to stay alive, to remain awake in a world that tells us to distance and downsize and defend against everything that makes us vulnerable. 

We are so afraid to be vulnerable. 

Yet, if falling in love taught me anything, it is this:

We must remain open even when it hurts because THIS is where the healing begins. 

And the truth is, the more we love, the more love we let in. Just because I lost someone it does not mean that the love we had is dead. I know this because my own heart is very much beating in the midst of missing someone I cared for deeply, and that love will always be mine to hold. To give, maybe even more than before. 

So. I am thankful for the in-between, for the what has been and the what is to come, for the fullness of this minute, this instant happening all around and through me. I am grateful I don't know the answers or the questions or the reasons why because it is in the absence of that control that I am free.

I am healing, yes.

But I am also hoping. 

I am letting my imagination run wild in the face of uncertainty. 

And this, this is what it means to love.

To show up, bloodied and bruised, but not broken.

To offer our heart because without it, we aren't really living.

To believe that no matter what is taken away, love will always remain.

And that is enough to keep showing up, to keep hoping, to keep loving...

today. 

on being empty.

My life is cluttered in every sense of the word. It's remarkable the ways in which I can whittle away my time. New York makes it easy to be busy at literally every second of the day, and I am no stranger to the lure of "more". When I first moved here I hated the thought of being still, and did everything I could to make the most of this city. It had been my only dream for so long, and I wasted no time in living it to the full.

Fast forward four years and the pace is the same, with one difference: I am finding that my world is still very full, but everything inside of me seems to be moving in slow motion. Part of this is because I recently lost love, but I think the greater reason is that I am growing.

When we plant seeds, we do not see them sprout for months on end. Waiting for the seasons to change can be painstakingly passive. Even so, we know that spring is coming. So we watch and pray that beauty will take root and hope will rise again. Sometimes, we have to remind ourselves what is happening beneath the surface even when the ground looks barren. 

But when we can't remember, it is tempting to abandon our tilled fields and look for a quicker form of sustenance. Understanding there's no guarantee that the flowers will bloom again can feel debilitating. Letting go in order to make room for something unknown is a disorienting experience. The reasons to hold onto our misery are boundless in the face of uncertainty, because at least we are holding on to something.

I think this is why I have worked so hard to not experience emptiness...I am afraid there will be nothing to fill it, and I'm afraid of who I am without everything I hide behind. Within our culture, we often look at the word empty as a bad thing. We say the glass is half full, but what if that half no longer serves us? What if we are carrying around a glass filled with stagnant water, or bacteria? We wouldn't be so keen to drink it then. 

This is what I am learning: emptiness must precede fullness if we wish to grow from where we are now. We cannot move forward without emptying ourselves of all that has kept us stuck. And while we squirm in the stillness of a hollowed out heart, there is much to be learned in the echo of its unoccupied chambers. 

In the process of becoming empty, we see things a bit more clearly, which is really the reason why most of us avoid it to begin with. We may find parts of us we don't like so much, or aspects of our current situation which are less than desirable. We may see that we are not so comfortable with ourselves, not so at home in our own souls.

This is a sad thing, to not be able to come home to yourself.

For the truth is, we are only as connected to those around us as we are to ourselves. Being able to sit with who we are in the stillness of our chest teaches us compassion. Allowing ourselves to shake hands with the messy parts, the shadows we are so afraid of, actually heals our dry bones.

And as we get to know our inmost being in this manner, as we lovingly face what lies within, we begin to let go. We release ourselves from the burden of being broken, we whisper comfort to the chaos below. We find that God has been there all along, beckoning us to see ourselves underneath the dirt we thought determined who we are.

Because the truth is, being emptied just gives us space to be our truest, most alive self.  It makes room for where we are going, for all that we can be if we'd just let ourselves get there.

Being emptied always leads to being full.

There is a story in the old testament about a woman whose husband died and left her with crippling debt. When asked what she had to pay it off, she said her only remaining possession was a small jar of olive oil. In her state of distress, a prophet instructed her to ask all her neighbors for their empty jars. In fact, he said:

"Don't ask for just a few."

Upon returning home, she was told to pour her small jar of oil into these empty jars, until every single one of them was full. And by way of a miracle, she did. She was able to then sell them and eradicate her debt completely.

Her life was no longer determined by her past, her destitution, or her perception of herself as a widow.

She was free. She had a future, and it was good.

But she had to empty her jar.

And trust that it would be filled again.

She had to trust that in the process of emptying what she believed to be her only possession,

she would be abundantly filled beyond her wildest expectations.

Sometimes I wonder how many blessings I have missed out on because of what I was holding on to instead. We become so afraid of losing that we develop tunnel vision, doubting that we could ever receive more than what we carry in the moment. Refusing to imagine what is waiting for us just on the other side of the door, if we could only have faith to walk through it.

So.

These days, I'm practicing being empty. I'm leaning into the promise that I will need more than a few empty jars in this coming year. I am finding that as I gently release the identities I clung so tightly to, there is more light that shines through. 

More love.

More hope.

More peace.

I am full.

Emptiness always leads to fullness.

Don't be afraid to pour everything out.

To dig up the ground and part with your last seeds.

Winter will end soon enough,

and spring is waiting just below the surface.
   

on waking up.

One of the most difficult parts of living is found in the waiting. The in-between times ask us to let go of the answers to questions we barely know. Oftentimes, we discover that we may even be asking the wrong questions. Nonetheless, standing still is hard.

I have experienced most of my time here on earth through chaos. Some of which I have created, some that I have not. This frenzied pattern of existing appeals to me in many ways. I am a person who is always on the go, always moving, always looking towards the next thing. In some ways, this has given me adventure beyond my expectations. I have no shortage of interesting and exhilarating stories to pull from, stories that I never dreamed would be my own to tell. But I also have many sorrows, many tales of suffering. Chaos is an intoxicating companion, but takes a great deal from us in the destruction she leaves behind.

Recently, I fell in love. There's no other way to state it. One day I was asleep, and the next I was awake, wide awake. I knew it deep down, I recognized it as if it were an old friend who had returned after many, many years away. Both strange and familiar, it brought me home. Home to myself, home to the world around me. Falling in love gives us a way of seeing that can only be found through the process, it touches the most intimate parts of who we are and names our very soul.

Loving someone and being loved, it changed me.

But, like many passionate love stories, chaos descended and troubled our happy hearts. What do you do when love is not enough? When you can't make it work, when it seems like who each of you are cannot overcome the obstacles in front of you? When you hurt each other because you have each been hurt?

How can someone hold your heart so tenderly and simultaneously break it to pieces?

Each day, I wonder at the mystery in front of me. I have loved and been loved, and still love eluded me. I found a partner, someone who walked with ease into my life, and yet just as easily walked out. It feels like there is a bit of me missing, a ghost always at my side. Losing love is the answer to a question I never wanted to ask, one that has left me confused, untethered, and lost to the ocean of my own loneliness. What do you do when love leaves you, especially when it never wanted to go in the first place, when it wanted to stay but knew it wasn't the right time or place?

I am haunted by these questions, with nothing to do but offer my empty hands back to the universe.

And so, I wait. I listen to my heart beating, my breath breathing, I watch the season change. I see the tree outside my window exploding in a brilliant, vibrant yellow, and marvel at the beauty that continues on without me. I make peace with myself. I hold my broken soul and whisper words of healing little by little, asking it to please stay awake despite its painful protests to be left alone. I look for signs of comfort in the distance.

In this time, I notice a lighthouse on the horizon, perched majestically atop the George Washington Bridge. I do a bit of research and find that it is the last aviator beacon, over 75 years old. Since planes no longer operate by this method of guidance, the light is completely ornamental. It was left as a memorial to a pilot who crashed in search of his own grand expedition, and continues to call him home. I find this grounding, this timeless commitment to those of us who are still trying to find our way back.

We all get a little lost along the way. We lose ourselves, lose the ones we love. Elizabeth Lesser, a gifted author and practicing doula, writes about this often. She believes that who we are at our core gets clouded over the years by our personal tragedies, the chaos that mixes us up and leaves us uncentered. We forget who are, and thus, life is not about healing so much as it is about remembering.

The storms we have come to weather are only distracting us from the light of our own sun, the light that has been within us from the very beginning.

I'm still working to clear my vision, to see and seek with truth rather than fear. I so wish that my love was enough to bring others back to themselves, but I am no miracle worker. Love sparks an awareness within ourselves, but it is up to us to see it through. To hold on to it, to internalize it and let it fill our empty places until we ourselves are full.

I am grateful I have learned what is to to be loved, what it is to make my way back from the wilderness.

Back to myself.

Back to who I was always meant to be.

How terrifying it is to return to vulnerability.

How tempting it is to go back to sleep.

To stand in the unknown still knowing that being loved is better than being alone.

To recognize that love within myself.

To understand the sunshine deep in my soul.

And to continue to look for the beacon in the distance, to wait with all my hope.

Because love, in any form, is eternal.

But we must stay awake to find it, we must keep our watch in the night.

For even in the dark it is waiting, and it will always find its way back home.

on being held.

When we are in pain, our tendency is to constrict ourselves, to preserve all of our energy so that we can just survive. This is a natural instinct. When we are in danger, especially if we know we will not survive the fight, we hide. Hiding takes the least amount of effort and is the safest bet for staying alive, hiding gives us time.

However, even in the most dire of situations, we cannot hide forever. We need resources, we need a way out to freedom. We want to thrive. Hiding may protect us, but it doesn't provide us with what makes life worth living in the first place, it doesn't fill us up with good things like love and joy and hope. It doesn't allow us to expand into wholeness.

Hiding makes us smaller.

I recently experienced a loss that knocked the wind out of me, more than I would care to admit. Losing love is like that I think. One day you are breathing clear and sure, and the next you are not. The next day you find that breathing is harder and slower, that it takes a more concentrated effort and determination than it did before. You come to see that you took for granted what came so naturally, so easily, and it leaves you weary down to your very soul.

In this space of loss, my impulse is to isolate. To turn away from others.

To hide.

I want to be able to safeguard myself from further suffering, I want to numb the heartbreak I have already felt. Loss has a way of bringing up a history of grief, of reminding us of every instance throughout our years in which we felt the stinging pang of abandonment. It feels as though loss takes something from us, every time, until we are afraid we won't have anything left. And so we hunker down. We put up our defenses.

We try with all our might to decrease our pain, and this takes quite a bit of energy. And so in our attempts to hide, to preserve our life, we actually do the opposite:

We become dead inside.

And while this may feel safer at first, we discover that it is no way to live, like breathing stale air or being stuck in the same mud day after day.

Let me be clear: desensitizing yourself is not the same as healing.

If we want to move forward, if we want to feel better, we must allow space to be broken, but also...

to be held.

We cannot make ourselves smaller in our brokenness because this does not allow room for healing to begin. When we go to the doctor, we don't say "I'm sick, but you can't help me." We move toward our physician, we allow them to touch us and examine our bodies, and it puts us in a very vulnerable space. And this is how it should be.

The doctor cannot help us if we don't show where we are hurting. But even more so, the doctor cannot heal us unless we give permission for that healing to enter our hurting places.

We have to let healing in, without running, without fighting, without hiding.

This can be exceedingly difficult, because it means we must remain open, we must feel everything that has destroyed us in the first place. It means we are trusting that our pain can be transformed if we let it. It means we are raw and sensitive and vulnerable and most likely in a state we would like to keep to ourselves.

It means we are allowing our most fragile pieces to be held, so that they can be healed.

So that we can be put back together.

So that we can be whole.

And isn't that much better than being broken?

Our safety is not determined by how many walls we can build to keep ourselves from being attacked.

It is determined by who is holding us.

And how we choose to hold ourselves in the process.

Are we growing, nurturing, speaking compassionately to our wounds? Or are we looking for quick fixes, easy remedies that don't require us to see the full extent of our injuries?

We cannot be healed until we are held.

And we cannot be held unless we are vulnerable: with our pain, with our shame, with our fragmented hearts.

I know it feels you may die from the pain of it all.

But don't shut down, don't hide yourself away.

Stay open so that you can receive, so that you can let in light and love, so that you can do more than survive.

So that you can thrive.

Your heart is still beating.

Don't lock it away.

Let it be held, with great tenderness, and with all your hope.

Healing takes time.

But so does hiding.

And only one of these options leads to you being truly alive.

heartbreak and hope.

It's an age old question: what do you do with a broken heart? As a person who loves intensely and deeply, heartbreak is no stranger to me. And yet, it never stops being difficult. I think one of the hardest things in this lifetime to do is to accept that all things come to an end. We struggle against the changing of the tide because it is scary, because it takes all the joy and goodness and security we have experienced and washes it out to sea.

This fear   

that we can love and lose,

is often what keeps us from loving at all.

I have spent so much time avoiding intimacy because of fear. Call it what you want  attachment issues, commitment phobia, it all boils down to the same thing: I am afraid to love and lose. I have spent the majority of my relationships, friendships or otherwise, anticipating loss. It is so hard for me to sit in the present moment and enjoy what is right in front of me without my brain wandering into the past or future with extreme trepidation. Predicting and preparing for farewells is my specialty.

Unfortunately, life has much to offer in the way of loss. We lose jobs, outgrow friendships, go through breakups. People die. It's messy, this business of living. And yet, we have no choice but to keep moving forward in the face of grief, to put one foot in front of the other in the midst of suffering.

Heartbreak can steal away our hope.

It can hide it, cover it up so that's it's almost impossible to find. It can convince us that there's no point, that while life was generous to us for a time, that time is over.

At points, the pain of heartbreak can feel unbearable.

It can feel like something has been taken from you, something that was a part of you, something that moved within you and was as natural as breathing.

You can feel the tear, in your soul.

You can feel your heart physically break.

And the ache, it can make you wish all the good times away. It can convince you that it would have been better if it never happened, if you had never allowed your heart and home to make room for another person.

But that tenderness, that feeling of vulnerability and fear   

You're listening to it all wrong.

You're brain is trying to rationalize something that cannot be understood with words:

You have loved and lost.

We will never be able to make sense of it this side of heaven.

Grief becomes a familiar friend in these times.

But what I am learning, what I am trying to fight for, is to continue to live with my heart wide open. To continue to love fearlessly and courageously, even when I may lose, even if loss is a possibility.

I am finding that each time I allow myself to fall a little more, to love a little deeper, I am making space for more love to come into my life. I am stretching, pushing past my anxieties, and seeing that even when I experience a goodbye it doesn't destroy me.

There may be days where we feel like we can't possibly push through, that there is no way we can tolerate another loss, another heartbreak but  

We get through it.

So. I am leaning into my heartbreak because it is letting me know that what I lost was valuable. That it changed me in such a way that had I not experienced it I would not have been for the better. That it gave me the gift of love, no matter the time period, a gift that can only be received if we lean into it fully.

I know we want to protect ourselves, keep our fragile hearts safe.

I know.

But don't ever stop loving. Don't ever stop showing up to what life has to give you, especially when it's really good, especially when it's sweet and full and whole. Yes, there is always the possibility of loss. Yes, our heart does have the capacity to break.

It also has the capacity to heal.

And sometimes, sometimes we need a glimpse of the good to just make it to the next day. To get through all the bad moments, to remind us that life can still be beautiful and full of hope despite what has happened to us.

Love prevails despite our circumstances.

Don't let it go because it hurts too much.

Being without it is much harder.

Much darker.

Your heart may fall to pieces, but the pieces will be put back together.

Not always in the way we want.

But with time, in the way we need.

You are not alone.

You will get through this.

Stay open.

Love is never lost.

And it will find its way back to your heart again.

vulnerability and love.

In life, there are few things that time does not wear down. Recently I went on a trip to Peru, and packed the only pair of hiking shoes that I had: a five year old pair of timberland boots, well loved and already weary from years of traveling. However, I was determined to get a few more good weeks out of them, to save some money and also because truthfully, I was attached. I have this weird thing with attachment. I tend to latch on to things rather quickly, becoming territorial and sentimental when there is a threat of them being taken away. It happens with people, places, and yes...even inanimate objects.

Anyway, the boots made it through the trip just barely. I found that by the end I was developing cramps in the arches of my feet and was beginning to feel just about every pebble that I stumbled across. They were worn down, and thus, not entirely useful to me anymore. They had a purpose when they were brand new, and they delivered well. But time had changed them. My boots, while once a comforting object, were now starting to cause me pain.

And that's the thing about attachment. So often we secure ourselves to that which no longer serves us, that which is in fact making us sick. We do this for so many reasons, but I think the biggest one is that it is familiar. We do not like what we do not know, even if the thing we do not know may be better for us. We would rather surround ourselves with familiar, dying objects then risk letting go in search of something new, something that isn't guaranteed to come.

I think the biggest way in which I struggle with this is within my identity. I am 29 years old and still discovering new things about who I am. And yet, most days, I find myself frantically scrambling back to the old, back to the Sarah that was unhealthy and detached and safely isolated. For some reason to me, this identity feels safer. I worry that if I meet someone new and they only see the nice, neat parts of who I am that I am in fact a fraud and not being honest about the mess underneath.

But the truth is, the parts of me that are whole and healthy and good ARE in fact the real me. I am learning, so very, very slowly, that if I want to move forward I must be willing to let go of who I used to be. I must stay open to new ways of being, new ways of seeing and perceiving myself and the world around me. I must let go of my attachment to familiar identities that kept me comfortable but in pain, identities that left me longing for more and asking questions that were answered a long, long time ago.

One of the hardest ways we must struggle against our attachment to the old is through the experience of love.

Oh, love.

Love has no rules, does not play by anyone's games. It will not be controlled and it is not here to listen to all the ways in which you believe it is not right for you, how it's not the right time or person or place. Love doesn't care. It will take you hostage and smother you in vulnerability, make you uncomfortable and squeamish and so very much afraid.

Love is about letting go of your attachment to what you think it should be.

Of who you think you should be.

Because the truth is, when we really love someone, we see their flaws and embrace them anyway. Love is not perfect, after all. It's the imperfections that draw us in, that keep us grounded and remind us that love can ONLY be love if it sees the whole picture, and stays. Anything else is merely idolatry, an infatuation with a partial picture of only the best parts of the self.

This is why we put such a high price on love. It's rare to find, but when you have it, it fills you up. It makes you bloom and teaches you about yourself in a way that is new and healing...

If you let it.

Because generally what happens is we reject it before it can even grow. We test it and we push it to its limits, and because we are afraid, we purposefully bare our teeth to see who runs. We fall back into old attachments, old ways of being, and when we get the response we are looking for we wearily let out a sigh of relief and go back to our miserable, lonely, comfortable cells.

There's a story in the bible about a man who was an invalid for 38 years. 38 years of a single identity, 38 years of suffering and going at it alone. Jesus saw this man and asked,

"Do you want to get well?"

And the man replies (in so many words),

"I have no one to help me."

Now, two things about this story interest me. One, I find it interesting that Jesus would ask the man if he wanted to get better, and genuinely wait for a response. But I think this tells us a great deal about the human condition, about the way in which we are willing to suffer because so much of our identity is found in it. The second thing I find interesting is that the man does not directly answer the question: he externalizes it. He does not have a belief he can get better, doesn't even seem to understand what Jesus was asking because it's so foreign to his 38 years of experience. There is new life waiting for him, right within his reach, and he rejects it, outright.

Luckily, Jesus saw through his limited understanding and commanded him to get up off his ass anyway, and WALK dammit (see John 5:8). Jesus was not fucking around!! He knew the man's capabilities and did not accept his excuses. He saw the true identity of the man, in his wholeness, not in his depravity.

Man. If only we could. If only we could see how we look when love is shining on our faces, if only we could surrender to it with an open heart and wide reaching arms, if only we could see ourselves for who we really are and not who we have been or are trying to be.

I want to settle into love. I want to hold it close, to have my soul mingle in the vulnerability in order to get the joy, in order to get the sweetness of such an attachment. Because ultimately, we cannot have both. We cannot lean into fear and let go into love. We must choose.

And it is a hard choice. Don't be mistaken. It will require you to put to rest a piece of you that you may have held on to for a long time. It will ask you to be open and patient, to make room for growth that is painful because it is stretching you, making space for all that love to take root deep down in your soul.

Trust the process. You won't know where you are going, and that's OK. Keep every part of you open.

I know it hurts.

But sometimes, we have to break the bone to heal it.

It's much better to take the pain up front, than to never walk again.

Remember, if it's new it will be hard, scary, and feel treacherous at points.

Don't turn back.

It's not worth it.

Keep your face towards the sun.

And let it remind you of the treasure you've always been,

And of the one that's been waiting for you all along.