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so, lovie.
today, do you remember?
that time when we had a girl’s night. under the sky, sitting on a blanket in center field. and we talked about life’s little whatnots. with dill cheese and crackers. and evoo and bread. with the stars. you remember?
you said something at the end. as we were packing our things. and i grabbed the sleeping bag - and left the heavy picnic basket for you to carry. you remember?
before we hopped the fences in the outfield.
lovie, you said something about how it’s hard for you to not be bitter towards boys in general. about how you think they all don't mean what they say. and i think it’s easy to associate that to all boys because a boy said he loved you. and then that love needed to move on.
and well, that is hard on a girl. i've been there. five years ago. with a boy.
and we have both grown since then. and we both needed to grow on our own. and i see that now. the heartbreak makes so much sense. and days were a long term cycle towards good. and now, i also see how he looks at people. and cares. he really cares about the care of people. he is the kind of passionate that some don’t know what to do with. so they label him too much. and you know that those are my favorites.
and so, i see. that this heartbreak was good.
but lovie. some days, if i am still. and invite those feelings back, my stomach still turns at my heartbreak.
it twists. and turns in and out. and i say,
i will never go through another break up again.
that the next boy will be the real deal. and i know it will be the real deal because i will watch him and know him before he ever holds my hand. or kisses my cheek. or plays with my hair. i say,
i will know him. i will see him be consistent in all surroundings before i let him look deep into me.
i mean, really deep into me. before i hear what he says without saying it.
before i speak.
i will never go through another break up again.
but, i put up walls a few years ago. and they were good walls. and i learned to be independent. and i learned to be me. and i learned confidence. and i experienced grace.
but sometimes - now, fourish years later - these walls are concrete. and i want to tear them down. but it is hard.
i am used to being just me and grace. and friends and family and batons and airplanes. i am good at being just me.
i am not good at thinking about letting another boy look at me. and see me. and hear me.
but i want to hear him.
and i feel like i have all of these things i would want to say. and all of these things i would want to be. and how i would want to love and serve him.
but lovie, these walls. they are such concrete.
and here's the paradox: the walls - the breakup resulting walls - held my shape. as i was being molded post heartbreak. these walls were the healing. and the chipping. and the stretching and growing. and the breathing. and laughing.
but now that those walls have served their purpose, i need to lower them down.
but it's so hard, lovie. to lower the walls, i mean.
so then i think of you. and your walls are being built so fresh. they are still settling in. shifting and finding their sturdy root in the ground.
and i think about the hurt that lingers for months after. the vulnerability of still feeling exposed. and some days – it’s like the actual act of a breath hurts. it deeply hurts to just even take your breaths.
and i want to tell you all of these things about how days get easier. and your mind doesn't trick or analyze you as often. and your appetite no longer fades in and out. and you begin to breathe without thinking.
but i know you know this. and i know you'll know this as you continue to go through this.
so instead. i want to pass on a good excerpt from a good book. by cs lewis. you may have read it before.
but it is true. about true love. and our role of it on earth. i honestly believe this is where the catch phrase,
it is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all
originated. seriously, i do.
and if cs isn't credited with that cliché - then, well, i think some trick of a poser out there ripped him off.
so, anyway, cs writes this in response to a letter from st. augustine.
in the letter, augustine had someone very close to him pass away. and he was devastated. and he droned on about how this is what comes when you give your heart fully to someone other than god. and even more about how you shouldn't let your happiness depend on something you may lose. if love is to be a blessing, and not a misery, it must be for the only beloved who will never pass away.
and cs agrees. and says something like,
yes of course this makes sense. sure, augie. i am a safety-first creature, too.
cs goes even further to agree with st augustine, and says,
of all arguments against love, none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as "careful! this might lead you to suffereing."
but (and this is why i wish cs was still alive. so maybe i could have coffee or doughnuts or a slice of pizza with him)
but (this is where cs kicks it.)
there is no escape along the lines that st. augustine suggests. nor along any other lines. there is no safe investment. to love at all is to be vulnerable. love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. if you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
but in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. it will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. the alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. the only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.
oh man oh boy oh man. cs then challenges the walls.
christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness. if a man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloveds whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards god whom he has not. we shall draw nearer to god, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to him; throwing away all defensive armor. if our hearts need to be broken, and if he chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it.
oh nuts. these times are nuts. being stuck inside this girl brain with rotating girl emoticons is nuts.
but if broken hearts are our story. then broken hearts hope to point us to love.
so then, lovie. no, we aren't nuts because we didn't see blinking signs - before we saw love. both sides did all they knew to do - to love. and thank god that he can take broken love and heal it and make us experience the deepness of a breath.
my walls aren't cool. they aren't independent and admirable. they are my way of trying to defend my own self.
but why do i try so hard to be own armor.
my energy should, instead, be focused on loving like grace.
and sweet grace will take care of all the heartbroken defense cop out-ness.
you know?
and, of course, it all comes back to our phrase.
the desire to be known and then loved. that is the faithful thing of it all.
but what if, even more, we now look at it and claim that
we are already known and already loved.
and now that. that is the faithful thing of it all.
