It’s true.  Not everything will be okay. This is not okay. It’s the deepest ache. It’s a solid core of loss layered on top of loss. I know it is.

But there you are in that small, quiet room, and although it – all of it – may not be okay – you will.

You will.

I feel this deep and true and right in the marrow of my bones. You will be okay and more than okay and so much more than you could possibly know.

There will be love. The kind of love that changes everything. And maybe more heartache. And so much laughter and breathless kisses and the hard fall of tears.

There is so much more ahead.  And it is so very good.  I promise.  I know this.

I hope that I get to see you love what you are. To know yourself as gift and worth and truth.

That you see what a huge thing it is to have the courage to break your own heart.  That you have chosen wholeness – even when it has shattered you. And that you will one day see that you can be whole and broken in the exact same spaces, that they nestle side by side – and that this is the way of things.  Not your punishment for wrongdoing, or for not trying hard enough – but just the way of things.

That you can stand and look at yourself in a mirror and see your goodness right there, see the worth of what you bring on the surface of your skin, just like I do.  That you trust there is brilliance to come.

That you own what is yours to own, both the bad AND the good.  That you do not insist on owning it all.  It was never all yours to hold.  Release to the wind, love.  Let it be carried away on the breeze.

It does not serve you now.

I know you, and your darkness and your shadow and all the things for which you practice self-flagellation.  And I still see you as good, and true and strong and powerful and exquisitely present in this world.

You have not chosen the easy way. Life has not granted you a gentle path. Not even close. But you have followed your own trail, again and again and again. You have done what you needed to move forward. You have placed one foot in front of the other and kept on going – even when that was the most difficult thing to do.

You have defined your space and your territory.  You have said  ‘This is mine.  You may not enter now’.  And you meant it. And you stood by it, even when it was impossibly hard.

And all of this, my friend, is no small thing. 

In fact, these are all very large things.  Infinite and powerful and true.

The voices in your head that say otherwise? These are born not from truth but from the stories others have created for you. These stories do not have to be yours. Even if they once were, you need not accept them any longer.

Give them back. Every last one.

You’ll write a new story now, on a blank page, with a new pen and in your own incomparable voice.

I wish for you so very much. Seaside wishes and spin the bottle daydreams. Lucky pennies and shooting stars. A safe place to fall and a high place to leap from into the deepest pool of the clearest water.

I hope that you shed the shackles of past and grief and loss and betrayal.  That you are possessiveness of your own wilderness.  That you stake your claim and encircle your space with charm and enchantment and only grant entrance to those who bring you fully alive.

I wish for you space to cultivate a relationship with your own divinity. No external god, but the divine that lives within your own stubbornly pulsing heart. I wish you the energy and emotion of the greatest love affair, given as a gift to yourself.

That you come home to the woman you are and the woman you are becoming. And then I hope you find what it is to love another in your mother tongue, a love that requires no translation and only delivers the ease of being fully known and fully seen.

A love that brings you alive and that carries you home.

No mistake, this is the phoenix fire part.

The burning down to ashes part.

The preparing to rise again.

This is a space without anchor, without moorings. Even the north star may be obscured by clouds.

But your compass lies within.

Your soul knows your truth north.

Can find it without map or directions.

You need only trust yourself enough to listen to the whispers of your valiant soul.

Lay your head in my lap, love. Tell me your stories.  The ones that have formed you into the gift that you are.

Now take a breath and let it go. Let it all go. Let the sea breeze carry it away. Let your tears fall.

You will be held now.  You will be carried. You can stop running. You can cease the endless motion and constant struggle.

You are home. You can rest now. You are safe.

And maybe, just maybe, now you can be still.

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The seizures were threatening to kill him, her only son. There was no choice. When he was in the hospital – having his skull opened to remove the tumor and during the long recovery that followed- she wore her wonder woman panties every day. Until they were as frayed and thin and worn as her weary heart. Because they were proof of what she needed to remember. She was very, very strong.

~~~

The night – when he took from her what should only ever be freely given – she watched it happen from the ceiling. When she could not bear to be inside her body for a moment longer, she left it behind. Floated high above.

Later, she kissed him goodbye, her lips parched and hard against his, aware that they were watching. After the others had long since fallen asleep the silent, shuddering tears began. She crawled up the stairs, her legs refusing to hold her any longer. Her knees scratched on rough carpet as she crawled across the bedroom in the dark, searching desperately for her overnight bag.  She knew without looking that her pink lace panties – the first pair that had made her feel like a grownup – would be stained with blood. She closed her eyes, silent tears streaming down her face, and wished for a cape. Blue and red satin, she imagined, and powerful enough that she would not have to float next time – she could fly away and never return.

~~~

Afterwards, when it was done – when the choice was made and it was over and could never be taken back – she stood in the shower. Her frail shoulders curved around her grief stained soul. She held her body, one that so recently had held another,  and she felt as if the earth might just give way beneath her feet. She waited for the hot water to scald the memories from her skin. She pounded slick tiles with her bare hands, a primal keening rising from the deep well at the center of her grief.  She was broken open, cracked wide. It was not supposed to be this way. There is no superhero in the world strong enough to alter this one irrevocable thing that she had done. This time, she would have to rescue herself.

~~~

Lover, there will be days when there are no telephone booths to change in. Days when your own personal kryptonite has robbed you of your last bit of strength. Days when Wonder Woman panties and satin capes and scalding water don’t have near enough magic to transport you back to the core of your powers.

Indeed, there will be days when the most heroic act you can muster is changing the sheets on your bed. All of your energy focused on tucking and smoothing, as if meticulously formed hospital corners are the one thing that will save your life. It matters now at the close of the day, when everything in this world feels dirty and cloaked in shame, that your skin only be touched by something clean.

This is enough. This is more than enough. 

No, you cannot really fly. There will be no single bound building leaps. You will not win a race with a speeding bullet. There won’t be a man in tights and a cape swooping down to save you. It’s just you.  One person. Small and exquisitely mortal against the relentless pressing of the big, wide world.

But know this. Even without costume or talisman or amulet, you have power beyond comprehension.  You have brokered peace treaties. You have kept intact that which was bound for disaster. You have held the hand of the dying and brought life to the world. You have brought down empires and built them anew, the right way this time.

To live this life. To live it with wholeness and gratitude and trust. In the pain and the glory.  In the mess and the grace. In the sacred and the desperation. This is the stuff of which real superheros are born.

And you. I bow to your tender heart. Your fierce ownership of self. To the battles done in the name of health and wholeness and agency and truth. To the choices made that had to be made that nobody understands. To the judgement faced and the heavy grief cradled.  To the ways you have continued, even in the face of great loss and sacred things stolen and all that has threatened your hard won peace.

It is no small thing to survive this world.  And it is no small thing to stand tall and to claim this life and to thrive.

I bow to you, humble and awed.

Because you have been the saving grace of your own survival, again and again and again. 

And in the end, there is nothing more powerful than exactly that.

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