dear you,
i hope august is being kind to you. i hope you’ve been able to spend time under the sun and by the water and the trees. i hope your heart feels light and warmed by the people you are so very much loved by <3
in august everyone passes in and out of who they are. the world is heartbreaking every day and it is beautiful every day.
the start of summer was precarious and uncertain for many reasons and i found it difficult to hold on to hope and my sense of self. i felt far away from myself and what i had cultivated inside of me as i struggled to come to terms with loss and change. the past month has been gentler, and i’m starting to accept the different aspects of myself as i change and grow and see how these parts make a meaningful whole.
this summer i’ve been making a conscious effort to fully inhabit and take ownership of my life even in little ways. i read somewhere that the capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention. i’ve been trying to surround myself with good things, spending time with people i love, going to places i like, trying new things, and getting out of my comfort zone. i’m trying not to focus on certain parts of myself, and eclipse or deny other parts. i’m trying to see how all these parts can exist alongside each other, and embrace all that i am as a chorus rather than as an erasure.
we have not met all the people who can call our names delicately and intentionally. who will look at us like the stars themselves are dancing in our eyes.
i’ve been thinking about shame and the experience of it in your formative years, how it becomes so difficult to be perceived by people because all attention feels dangerous as there’s a chance of being violated somehow. unlearning shame is strange because your instinctive reaction is to take your feelings as fact, so it becomes hard to convince yourself that it’s okay to be seen and experienced.
i think it’s so important to build the courage to live with only the thoughts of the happiness and well-being of you and those around you. these days i am trying to consider myself, my needs and my wants in a way that honours my values and boundaries. i want to be kind and gracious but also stand up for myself when i need to. i am reminding myself that sensitivity is strength, and that i have the right to take up space and exist just like anyone else. even when i’m a bit prickly and not soft and easy and good. that i can be ugly and still be held anyway.
i think there is such an emphasis on doing everything in the right way that we often forget that it’s our first time being alive. it’s okay to not be who you want to be yet, and it doesn’t matter whether you’ve become what you wanted before. what matters is living your life trying to become what you want to be.
“the longer i live, the more deeply i learn that love — whether we call it friednship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light”
james baldwin
i feel like kindness is often seen as a moral or individual identity but i think it’s more of a shared practice that we can all try, fail at, be supported in trying again with, and ultimately strive for. we are not inherently evil when we make mistakes but we are human. experiences hold lessons. you can make peace with what is not in your control. you can forgive someone for your own sake and not necessarily theirs. you can hold yourself accountable while also acknowledging your patterns of self-preservation. you can let people be who they are even if that means losing them.
as i’m writing this, the first super blue moon of the year is shining brightly in the sky. i feel held by its orange glow and the knowledge that it’s the same moon my loved ones are also under.
i’m reminded of the feeling of being a child in the car at night, looking out the window at the moon in between the streetlights, and thinking it is following me home. i cling to that sentimentality these days; the earth as a friend, a guide. so that i might find something to hold. something to keep me tender and sincere and full of wonder.
what a lovely thing to read in the early hours of the morning <3
Love the tenderness of this, the recognition that we are all prone to mistakes and there is room to be imperfect and still deserve kindness and love. That being seen is scary but can also be a beautiful thing if we allow ourselfes to experience it.