My Void
Everyone you meet has a part to play in your story. And while some may take a chapter, others a paragraph and most will be no more than scribbled notes in the margins, someday you’ll meet someone who will be so integral to your life, that you’ll put their name in the title. I am awfully sentimental. Of books, belongings, people, places. It matters very little how positive or negative the experience was. If it shared some meaningful time in my life, I’ll have trouble letting go.
See, you and I have always been polar opposites. When you are west, I am east. When I am south, you are north. But though the differences between us could span the earth, when we embrace — when we meet at the equator line — together, we create a world. You want to know what it was? The moment I knew you were it? It was when I showed you the darkest parts of me, and instead of running away, you rolled out a blanket, laid on your back and pointed out the stars.
Once a deep and powerful connection between two people has been made they become a vital part of each other’s lives and there is no separating them. No measure of distance or duration of silence can prevent the outbreak of smiles and laughter or the strong desire to leap into each other’s arms when they come together once more.
But then you said, ‘never forget me’, as if the coast could forget the ocean or the lung could forget the breath or the earth could forget the sun. So unfortunately, you cannot always rely on the word of others. You can have trust and faith, but ultimately, you have got to wait on people to prove their decency and sincerity through their actions. The promises of others are no more a certainty than a cloud is a guarantee of thunder.
From then, she was unstoppable, not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them. You couldn’t hope to hold down her heart any more than you could shackle the stars to the earth.
Her heart is not captured easily. She is now disinterested in small talk, disillusioned with love, and too focused on her dreams and aspirations to lend anybody her attention for long. But if you make that connection, if you find your way into her heart, she will fall for you like gravity has let go of the earth.
Dear love, the next time you find yourself in a dark place, I want you to pick yourself up, step outside, look long and hard into the deep night sky and take comfort in the knowledge that the absence of light means nothing in this universe is any less astonishing or magic. This is me saying that I would set myself on fire to bring light to all of the dark places within you. All that makes you fragile and fierce and clever and powerful and wounded and creative and layered and thoughtful and moody and insightful and wild and damaged, can be described in one single word: lovely. Please believe that.
I once met a woman during my dark times who always taught me to admire my damages. Did you know, she would begin, that the Grand Canyon was formed by the relentless current of the Colorado River cutting into the earth over the course of years? See, even this world has scars, she would say, and look how beautiful that can be.
From her, I’ve learned that even the most beautiful of wildflowers are considered weeds in the wrong gardens — what another may think of you does not dictate your value. Never be sorry for who you are. Your personality should never be shrouded in what society expects of you. Be shamelessly, unapologetically you. You will find the world rallies behind those who carve roads of their own.
History — I forgive you. Not for you, but for me. Because like chains shackling me to the past I will no longer pollute my heart with bitterness, fear, distrust or anger. I forgive you because hate is just another way of holding on, and you don’t belong here anymore.
Stability in life begins in knowing the heart. Some things you just cannot predict or control — when the world comes crashing down around you, it is a strong sense of self and understanding of your own worth that allow you to weather the worst of the storm. That woman told me, “You are fierce. You’re a survivor. You’re a fighter through and through. Little brave, breathe. There is a warrior within you.”
I am learning to say yes, to be daring and spontaneous, to hurl myself into people and places and moments without hesitation or second-guessing myself — to challenge my anxieties, to confront my fears and trust unwaveringly in chance and fate to lead me to where I am supposed to be. I’m also learning that the difference between an ordinary life and an extraordinary one is only a matter of perspective. Pull the blinds. Look around you. It is a weird, wonderful world and you do not require a ten-digit bank account to immerse yourself in it. Travel down dusty roads without a destination in mind. Climb a mountain and scream out into the void. Get lost and lose yourself (these are two separate things). Explore the wilderness (particularly the one within). Think less of destiny and more of the moment right here. Because in the end, as you reflect back on your life in that hospital bed, surrounded by all your family and friends, fame won’t matter, nor will the extent of your wealth — you are only the sum of the stories you can tell.
Disclaimer: I wrote this by collecting thoughts, quotes, song lyrics etc from a bunch of different artists, writers, poets and musicians. I paraphrased it and made it personal to me.