hey sweetie, welcome home

I feel like I’m made of electricity. Like there’s this energy within me that needs to fizzle out my fingertips and toes. If I were to open my eyes, light would stream out of the cracks, and I can’t imagine what would happen if I opened my heart. There’s something magical about a person who has experienced so much pain and can still hope and hold. I know that that’s the kind of person that I’ve always wanted to be. For so long I was scared that my pain would outrun me, that it would wrestle me to the ground, pin me, clamp its hand over my mouth, so I had no choice but to be silent. It’s freeing now to recognize that that part of me existed, maybe a part still does, but the me now is so assured that I can hope and hold while being in pain.

They say the people who know you best are also the ones that can hurt you the deepest; knowing exactly which tender spots are the ones to prick. They’re also the same people that shame & hate themselves when they do hurt you; but they don’t seem to care so much when they hurt you as they’re leaving. Probably because they don’t have to watch. 

I’m really quite tired from having people leave. I’ve put so much energy into this idea that I almost didn’t notice the more consistent reality I’ve had: the ones that show up. 

How can love not be “right”? A question I had never had to approach before.

The universe is unique in that it gifts you people that are just right for you in moments that you feel you couldn’t be for yourself, and then just as quickly as they entered, they leave, ultimately giving you back to yourself. I sometimes wish that this wasn’t how life worked; that it could be easier, simpler, less painful; while at the same time, I can hold the truth that I have never wanted to live a life of ease, comfort, or one that lacked pain simply so that I could remain exactly as I was. 

I think growing into the person that you were meant to be takes a lot of heartbreak. And I would go through 100 times the pain to meet this person on the other side that holds all parts of me together; the me that regulates my nervous system so seamlessly; that becomes everything that the little hurting parts of me so badly needed. It’s been truly an honor to get to know her and welcome her home.

Like the first breath after you’ve had the wind knocked out of you, it’s a very releasing feeling to go through something so life-changing and come out the other side with this newfound energy. It’s almost as if this version of me lived within a chest locked inside her heart, just growing and waiting. I didn’t realize that all the little parts of me each contained a piece of the key that had the capacity to unlock her. I needed all of those parts to come to a place where they were ready to awaken this version of me, to let it spread through my system. I can’t imagine the me that existed before she showed up, before she was unearthed, and how beautiful that she did at the exact moment I needed a calm and understanding touch. It doesn’t make me resentful or irritated or sad by the me’s that existed before her, the complex parts that developed from so much pain; but man, I’ve been waiting for you for so long.

For the past couple years, I’ve been placing this idea of home on the shoulders of other people. Without realizing it, or meaning to I abandoned myself in so many ways. And I wish that I could say this isn’t the first time that I’ve realized this, that maybe at some point in my life I had arrived at a place where I could look at myself and truly recognize that there was no need to search for anything beyond what was inside of me. And while, yes, I feel frustrated that I keep arriving at this same realization, it doesn’t stop being profound. This time, I truly think I figured it out.

I have walked across countries, through the Himalayas, the Alps; I have lived in dozens of different places, in cabins all alone in the woods, and tiny studio apartments, surrounded by mountains, in converted garages, tents, overpriced renovated airstreams, and I thought for so long that perhaps the space mattered; that my body would just simply know when it was at home; that’s not to say that people in my life haven’t offered the space of home for me, I think the fact that they have is the hardest part. How wonderful to be someone’s home. So many in my life have shown me different versions of home, the feelings that it offers, ultimately heartache has taught me that I am still my best home; that everything that I was searching for has always been right here.