Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.
James Baldwin
Love takes courage. True, intense, genuine heartfelt, gut-wrenching intimacy, the kind where your body aches when you are separate from the other person and your stomach flips when you know you will see them and your heart jumps when you hear their voice, comes from possessing the bravery to honestly face all the parts of yourself that you so naturally want to hide, and allowing them to see them.
But this is not easily achieved. Because to allow someone else to see you for who you really are, you must have the courage to face yourself, to look into that metaphorical mirror and admit that there are parts of your being that you know you would be much more comfortable being kept hidden. And so the first person you hide them from is yourself, and the rest comes naturally.
To lie to oneself is the most detrimental act. I have spent many years reconciling the elements of my nature that I would rather not accept. The decisions I have made that I wish I could retract. The arguments I have had that I wish had not been so hastily rushed into. The behaviour I have undertaken that in retrospect I do not believe represents the person I wish to be. The years I have spent in reconciliation have not always been pleasant. For to feel guilt, and to feel shame is a unique discomfort that I would not wish upon anyone, although we all feel it sometimes. Often just a little, and it will pass, as we explain our actions away, but occasionally our actions ensure that we feel it acutely. And it is when we feel it acutely that the discomfort and the pain takes longer to pass.
As a teenager I felt I had little control over my emotions, and therefore my actions, and I spent much of my early adulthood learning to take responsibility for the deeds that I let pass. Taking the responsibility did not mean that I was devoid of the feelings of shame and the latter part of my twenties has been spent learning to show myself compassion and ultimately forgiveness for the behaviour the younger version of me had let slip. It is only in forgiving myself that I am able to release the shame, and to wholeheartedly and genuinely demonstrate my remorse towards those I have hurt in the past.
And it is through this undertaking that I have grown my heart. I am in awe of the wondrous nature of the world. It both warms my soul and terrifies me. I have been recently accused of not living in the present, of not being content with what I have before me. The present is a glorious time, it is when I am the most authentic version of myself. I am not planning how I shall behave, nor am I evaluating what has already come to pass, I am simply being and I take great pleasure in this. But I have dreams, and I have hopes, and I have desires and I have plans and one day some of those dreams, and some of those hopes, and some of those desires will become my present and I will be authentically living them and experiencing all the joys and heartaches that life will throw at me. I will face all elements of my reality and I will not shy away from them. I will rejoice in my successes and I will confront my imperfections, and I will share that with those I love because I know that in doing so it will make my soul and my relationships stronger.
For I am not afraid of being known. I want nothing more than for someone to know all the intimate parts of me; all the uniqueness, all the ugliness and all the perfect imperfections that create this wonderful individuality and for me to be loved regardless without fear and without judgement. Because I am someone who knows that life is very far from perfect. Life is full of disappointments and pain and grief and heartache but it is also full of wonder, and it is full of joy, and it is full of so much love you would not believe. But you can only have that love if you choose to enter into your existence with an open heart and an authenticity that means you are able to live with yourself. For if you are unable to live with yourself, then there is very little hope of you being able to live alongside anyone else.
I write this from a place of pain and of heartache. I write this as I begin to figure out what my life looks like minus someone who I believed was very important to me. Today I noticed that whenever my battery hits eighty-eight percent I think of you and know that no one else would have this thought and that if I were to tell anyone but you they would think me insane. But this does not phase me. I know I think of you because I know your favourite number is eighty-eight. I know this because I listen, and because I care and because I love with my whole heart and these kinds of things do not just leave you. And I know I know you and this is why you are absent, because sometimes the pain of being known is too much for one to handle. Because love, as James Baldwin said, is not simply the niceties of a honeymoon period, or having someone to wish you goodnight, or kiss your forehead when you feel under the weather, but a scary thing; a thing that makes you confront all the realities and demands that you evolve. Love is an ever-changing state that relies upon honesty, courage and self-respect; characteristics that can require a bravery often too difficult to bear.
And so my battery slips down to eighty-seven and it follows that your presence is a lot less prevalent and my mind begins to ease as I remember who I am, just me, authentically myself, minus you.
SAFFRON RAIN 