BIG FEELS ABOUT DOING ANYTHING FOR LOVE:
I used to run barefoot, head-long, across gravel roads, dry prairie grass, long hallways of beige coloured linoleum, to the edge of a cliff I called love. It was easy to jump—easy to hurl my body in ways that would hurt me, for someone else.
I love you I love you I love you meant I will do anything anything anything.
I thought loving myself would feel the same. I wrote poems about tearing my chest open, pulling out my spine, folding myself into tiny packages.
I love you I love you I love you.
I will do anything anything anything.
I’m not sure when anything became the equivalent of hurting, but I know I’m so mad about all the times I let myself take the hurt that was given to me and call it love.
I’m learning to love myself in new ways now. I have built up boundaries with those who do not understand the ease with which they take from me.
love you love you love you
anything anything anything
Today I returned from an extended family visit feeling like a husk. Still, I am proud of how far I have come. Still, it is an exhausting experience to be with people who do not want to see me as I am; who now tiptoe with their tongues.
I was able to see a heart friend while I was in my home province. We are both eldest daughters with complicated families.
“We will always be grieving, won’t we?”
(Because to do anything for love is nothing if not unending grief)
The answer is yes, but it is also no as we put together our spines and unfold our limbs. We are learning to love ourselves in easy ways and hard. We are not jumping off cliffs, but creating quiet havens at home; small sanctuaries where the grief can be left on the doorstep, if only just for the night.
Talk soon,
Natahna
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