To the people on this earth who are keeping me afloat, Thank you
I’ve been fortunate enough to have met some truly remarkable people so far. Ones who create spaces you don’t ever want to leave. The ones who make you wonder what you did to deserve people like them in your life. The kind that you love and who love you back with all their infinite potential. You just feel like a different person in their presence. Their aura explodes with the colours of happiness. You look at them and you know that with them by your side that things just might be ok.
The intensity with which these people have an effect on my life is difficult to measure. Their absence is something I feel every single day(don’t worry they haven’t died). I can’t help but think that someone would have given me a tight hug, another person cuddle with me while we watch brooklyn 99, one would have given me a kiss on the forehead and all of them would have told me that they love me and that things will get better one day.
It’s scary how much of your happiness rests on a fragile foundation of hugs, conversation, forehead kisses, doggie licks, encouraging gifs and cuddles. It’s terrifying how you can be a very independent person with a great career and hobbies but lacking love, care and someone’s shoulder to cry on will always leave your life incomplete. It’s debilitating to think that all it takes is 2 months of isolation to start to spiral.
Why is it that we can’t be happy on our own. Why do we have the desire to make loving connections and feel pain when we lose them or don’t have access to them. Why do we put ourselves in positions of vulnerability for love. Why do we allow room in our heart for so much pain.
I don’t understand why but I know now that it has to be done. My heart will break every time I have to leave a friends place or drop them home. I will never get enough hugs or midnight pizza or conversations that stretch so long under the moon that we wake up in each other’s arms. I’ll never stop making them paintings and texting them every single day with the most mundane parts of my life. Not being able to give and receive love as I’d wan has by far been one of the most difficult things I’ve had to deal with. The lonely nights when I’d try to muffle my cries with my panda or the mornings wondering why I should even get out of bed probably would have been a breeze with one of these strangers turned angels. In those moments despite being far far away, my memories with them and the things they’ve said have pulled me through. It helped me survive another day.
Maybe this is why people do it. You balance great grief with great love. Great sadness with great happiness. Enormous support, admiration and affection for lonely nights, skin hunger and heartbreak. Maybe the human experience requires you to know what you’re going to lose should you chose to corrupt the cosmic glory of your relationships. To make sure you don’t take the love in your life for granted.
To the people on this earth who are keeping me afloat, Thank you. It’s all I can ever say. I do hope I’ve done a good job at being there for you when you needed it. God knows if it wasn’t for you I’d have drowned in darkness a long time ago. It’s frightening to put a large chunk of my mental health in another human being’s hands but I’ve seen you hold it so gently, with so much grace and care. I’ve seen you treat it like an innocent child. You do a much better job of it than I do and until I learn to treat myself like you treat me, thank you for holding on to me just a little longer.
