love-full

♥

pride concerns the self. 

love concerns the other. 

no words

i've been in a little bit of a daze, thinking about someone i love.  someone whose heart is broken.  not just broken like in two.  but broken into a thousand tiny pieces.  the kind where you don't know how to hold yourself together, you can't sleep, you have no appetite, and you just really don't know how you're getting from moment to moment.  it's that kind of broken when tears are sitting in front of your eyeballs and it is some miracle that they aren't racing down your face when they aren't.

it's that kind of broken when your thoughts come and go in no order.  when you feel scattered and lost and scared and nothing seems real.  when you pray that you are in a nightmare, and that when you wake up it will all be over.  when you see and hear other people laughing and carrying on around you, but you don't know how they are doing it.  and whatever they are laughing about or smiling about just can't possibly be that important.  because your world is different.  because your world has changed. and it just doesn't seem right that the rest of the world is going on as if nothing has happened.  even the sun shining seems ... wrong.

the kind of broken you feel when someone you love is suddenly and unexpectedly no longer on this earth.

it is scary to think about ... our mortality.

it is scary to think about ... our lack of certainty.

there is no promise that any one of us will be here tomorrow.  i know this.  you know this.  we all know this.  yet we live as if there is some promise of the future.

when someone leaves our life, we recognize this truth and we sometimes talk about the fact that we have no guarantees and that we need to live in the now.  waste no time.  seize the day.

i am lost in between both of these feelings.  the hurt, the paralysis of knowing someone i love is hurting in this way ...  and the gentle reminder that life is fragile.

i always try to find the message ... the gift in any struggle.  sometimes i can't feel one without the other.  sometimes i can't feel either one at all.

this isn't the first time i've written about the loss of another person's life.  but just as each person's life is unique, so is each one's effect on the world when they go.

i know what it's like to sit in silence and awe, at a traffic light, and look around and not understand how the world is turning and how no one knows that someone i love is gone.  watching people go through drive-thrus and order burgers and somehow even that doesn't seem right.  like how can things just go on the same when nothing is the same?  shouldn't there be some kind of acknowledgement by the world?  it doesn't seem right or even possible.

i know what it's like to hold a family member who has lost her child and cannot talk, swallow, or barely breathe.

i know what it's like to hold my friend who has lost her husband, and lie in bed with her, without speaking, for weeks.

i know what it's like to ache for someone else's ache.  to hurt and cry along with and for another heart that is floundering.

i just still don't know the words to say.
there never seem to be any words that are the right ones.
there never seem to be any words that help.
at times like this,
there never seem to be any words
at all.

best year

♥

go ahead!  

make this YOUR best year!

♥

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♥ here♥

sticks and stones

while i do believe that another person's opinion of you does not define you, and just because someone says something to you or about you, that doesn't make it true ...  i also believe that even though sticks and stones may break bones, words can in fact hurt sometimes...

i believe it is only right that we should be mindful of our words, our tone, and the energy that we bring into any space. 

it is our responsibility to recognize who we are, and think about who it is that we want to be.  to acknowledge that the way we affect others not only affects the relationship they have with us, it can also affect them as a person. 

this is true for any dynamic, whether it is a partner, a child, a parent, relative, friend, or stranger. 

our awareness can make the difference. 

a broken spirit takes much longer to heal than a broken bone. 

stain on your soul

♥

there are some hurts that don't just go deep. 

they shatter. 

and pieces float around inside you, 

some just underneath the surface of your skin, 

where you can almost see them in your reflection. 

some lodging in crevices you never knew you had 

and getting stuck there with their fresh sharp edges. 

and others saturate you, 

soak through 

and stain your soul, 

changing you 

like beautiful 

painful 

original 

art. 

love is kind

♥

love is kind.

this is not about scripture.

this is about life.

this is simple.

when you love someone you don't want to see them hurt,

and you certainly don't want to cause them pain.

loving is compassionate.

ego is self serving.

are you living a life of ego?

or are you living a life of love ...

have you ever been empty

i had a conversation with someone today who told me that he felt completely empty.  his face was soaked with tears.  his voice was choked with fatigue.

i felt what he felt, right along with him, i cried right along with him, and i felt the weight of exhaustion. the weight of emptiness.

afterwards as i sat with myself, immobile, i just stared, at nothing and no one.

it washed over me, the last time i felt that sense of emptiness or aloneness.

it was when i felt that a baby inside of me was no longer alive.

i felt that when it happened.  i could feel the difference in my body before even getting to the doctor.  i didn't need a doctor to tell me.  the first time i didn't realize that i knew what had happened.  it was the first time and i was in denial.  i was hoping and praying that i was wrong.  after that i knew.  and each time it was this feeling of emptiness.  

it was like life was inside me.
and then suddenly it wasn't.

i didn't want it to be true.  i was confused and angry and it seemed that other people were having pregnancies easily or having abortions easily.  it didn't seem to matter to anyone else.  there i was with this empty space inside me that no one could see, no one could feel, and apparently no life could live in.

that's how this emptiness felt.
not the presence of anything bad.
but the absence of something good.
the absence of life.

sometimes people come into our lives who have something about them that makes our world better.  they bring us life.  when people say someone is "a breath of fresh air" or "a ray of sunshine" ... they are basically saying that someone breathes life into their own life.  

the loss of someone in your life, due to any circumstance, can create this emptiness.  it is unlike any other, and if you have experienced this, you know what i mean.

if you ever feel this feeling, this hollow feeling, in part of you or what feels like your whole self, like if someone picked you up by your legs and shook you, you would be as light as air, and all they would hear is the sound of your broken pieces rattling around inside, i can assure you that you are not the only one who knows this feeling.

we have not all experienced love in its true form, but we have all experienced pain.

and i think love is the only way out.
the only way to fresh air so that you can breathe.
the only way from darkness into light.
the only way back
to life.