fear

The Lion’s Roar


I saw this piece posted today, and it was like a bolt of lightning illuminating the answers to the how and why questions I’ve been asking myself the past six months.

I realize now that there came a time when I let my hands fall helplessly to my sides in a silent gesture of defeat. I see clearly now that the moment I did so was the death of my hope.

I welcomed the numbness that slowly filtered through my heart and dimmed my belief in the joy to be found in life, as well as the pain of it. I was so tired of hurting.

I became a coward. 

I had been, before that moment, one who would not comply when I disagreed with a directive. I was lion-hearted, and it roared through the silence of my deliberate actions, choice of words and the look in my eyes.

I knew how to get what I wanted. I made things happen. I got the jobs I chose for the advancements that would follow. I held the ones I decided to love for the time we were given. I faced losses and disappointments that took me to my knees and accepted  the consequences of wrong choices without a single excuse. I was brave, foolish and proud.

Until love chose me, and I let it break me.

At that moment, I let go and accepted what I believed to be true. I loved too intensely, demanded too much in return, my personality was too strong as was the fire of my imagination. I was too much to be tolerated.

I pushed the mute button and settled for the “sanity” I saw in the world around me. That choice, that path, that life that everyone else had-seemed so appealing to me as I sat there quietly…

Letting my heart bleed out.

I’m no light weight. I tried. I gave every effort, tried every suggestion, tolerated every insult I brought upon myself. This spanned decades. It felt like an eternity.

I felt myself dying.

I would wake up each morning with a sense of sorrow, whispering the question “why?”. Why was I still breathing? What was I here for? What was the point?

It frightened me that those thoughts didn’t frighten me.

Something, some survival instinct I suppose, flickered enough that I began to ask myself hard questions. When I did, I began to wish and want. As if lit by a match, a tiny feeling of hope sparked to a slow smoking spiral upwards.

I wasn’t dead yet, so I wasn’t done.

I began to dream, then plan. In an act of sheer bravery (or foolishness) I took a step, and then another. On my third unsteady stagger forward hope flared in me so brightly that I could see every possibility.

Every action I’ve taken since then is more gasoline feeding the flames of a hope that will burn you to ashes if you try to extinguish it.

Lack of action feeds hopelessness. Action creates it, feeds it, dances in the light of it.

If everything I dream of is not to be found in this lifetime… well then I will have lived a wonderfully adventurous life seeking it all …won’t I?

There have to be others out there stomped by life yet still determined to stand up with pieces torn and damaged, loving large anyway. I believe there are those who face being loved with equal parts joy and terror who still have the courage to open their arms wide and welcome what would overwhelm most.  The spiritual samurais who won’t shrink back, the ones who have the superpower of huge emotional capacity, the junk yard dogs of loyalty.

I can feel you out there. I can hear the beating of your hearts. I will find you.

You are not alone.

This Is How


 

This is how you quit hiding. This is how you do that scary thing you only whisper to yourself when the shadows of midnight are your cover. This is how you quit being someone who accepts insult and disrespect and turns it into fuel for the journey to redemption.

This is how you quit looking at yourself with the same contempt that you hear in the voices of those who are supposed to love you. The same people who demand respect for themselves and won’t give it to you until you grab them by the nuts and squeeze. Yes, those people.

This is how you lift your head and look yourself in the eye and say “fuck you” to anyone who tries to tread on you while you fight your way out. This is how you lose friends you don’t need, and create an open space for people with spine and courage to come rest with you when you stop to breathe.

This is how you make it through the jagged edges of your own bullshit and throw yourself on the ground of the truth you were never willing to see until now. Go ahead, roll onto your back and look up at a sky you haven’t seen as you inhale the possibilities. Count the stars as you dream, watch them as they shoot across the sky and fall. Feel the wind of everything whispering at the edges of your mind for a chance to grow. Take in the feeling of the grass at your back supporting you like the certainty burning in your gut right now.

I didn’t know what it felt like until now, did you?

This is how you finally break the destructive pattern of giving pieces of your heart and soul that you will never get back to those who are too blinded by their own damage to love anyone.  They are not capable of seeing, accepting or thriving in the love burning you from the inside out.

This is how you say, “I love you, but you can’t stop yourself from trying to bury me in your own damage, so I have to step away”. This is how you say “I am here anytime you need me to hold you or help you move forward, but no more games”. This is how you say “I love you, but you’ll speak to me with integrity and respect, or not at all”. This is how you can look yourself in the eye every morning in the mirror.

The other option is shame and sorrow, which I personally have lived with for too long and do not recommend. When you look at yourself with the same disgust that you hear in the voices of those who say they love you, it is time to take yourself outside and kick your own ass.

Nobody is going to save you. You are all you’ve got.

So let me recap. No matter now badly we were treated, we thought even less of ourselves than those who smacked us down. No matter how much we want to love and be loved, allowing disrespect to build another’s broken self esteem is unacceptable.  Stop the lies you tell yourself. They don’t love you, you just make them feel powerful. They don’t need you, you’re just convenient. They don’t respect you and you hear and see it daily until you WALK AWAY.

WALK AWAY, MY DARLING HEART .

I am here. I am the sky, the stars, the wind and the grass at your back supporting you. I have been there, I may still be there now to welcome you. I am fighting my way out and away from those who would build themselves an empire of our shattered bones, broken spines and torn hearts. I am fighting. Every day means change if you just have the courage to take one step.

One step can be the difference between living or dying for your love, hope, soul and dream.

This is the way. Be afraid. Do it anyway. I believe in you. I believe in me.

Let it be written.