twenty-sixteen

Hey there.

Hey, lift your head.

What has you so tied in knots?

You think there’s nothing left, don’t you.

That every time you try, you mess it all up. You’ve asked-is any of this worth it?

Am I worth it?

Come here.

Let me hold your hand, and listen to you. Pour out your fears.

I won’t tell you there’s nothing to be afraid of. You have seen enough of this life to have earned the truth.

I am so sorry that load you have been carrying is crushing your very spirit.

And you have been doing it all alone wondering why no one has noticed how you walk; bent, limping.

I can’t take this from you, but walking alone ends now.

And, I will support you so that burden is a little bit lighter for the rest of this particular journey.

You are not weak by allowing someone to help.

We are simply not meant to do this life alone.

Maybe some frames of our film are solitary pictures of just me, you.

But you have been trying so hard for so long.

So now, feel those hard, painful emotions you’ve previously pushed away.

Yes, I know they are not pretty, even look ugly to you, but they are valid, real.

However, they are not you.

You are simply beautiful.

You don’t have to believe it, see it, claim it, not now, not yet-yet still it is true.

You say, dirty is not beauty; soiled, blemished, scarred.

Let me search with you for the source of this dry river-bed.

Then you can drink handfuls of clear, sweet water until you are filled, and then, we need only to find a patch of sunlight.

There you can plant your roots for a time, and catch your breath.

Maybe we will take a look at that cumbersome load over there-together unpack and see if there are any pieces we can discard.

Of course, I will stay with you until we have reached the bottom.

Let me take your garbage.

Please know, there is nothing that you hand me that makes you less than.

This garbage, it’s not recyclable, not something to donate-it must be thrown away.

I’ll light a fire for you and we will burn your refuse.

Then.

When the embers glow within the wood and the ashes fall onto our skin, you will know.

It is time.

You get to choose, how long before you pick that burden back up.

Because, let’s be clear, it still exists. I’m so sorry it does.

But you get to decide how you will carry on.

I cannot imagine your suffering, your pain.

I wish we could fix this.

How unspeakably punishing it has been.

It’s no wonder you have grown thorns.

But that will not keep me out.

I must tell you though, that I have limits; that my strength fades, my hope disappears, my faith can be overcome by fear.

Know it isn’t my heart that chooses this completely. We all receive love and gift love uniquely.

And my aim is love.

We will navigate this trial, walk this trail with one another.

So let’s prepare. We have enough to start. We will look for provisions along the way.

We may stumble, fall apart, weaken: but we are sculpted out of the finest clay-mud from dirt and water formed in an image of what a creator deemed perfection.

Ready?

Take my hand.

…i found this one recent night, late when I couldn’t yet sleep. So i was up, looking for a good read to help me fall asleep, and found a pile of my drawings, doodling, writings I had done over the year. This one caught my eye. I remembered writing it, wrapped in a blanket in my cozy chair, in the deep midwinter of last January, when 2016 was still new and relatively unmarked.

I wrote this as a letter to myself originally. To remind myself when that I am valuable and valued, and real. Looking at it again, i also felt the pull to share it here.

It is what I would say to a suffering one, whether I know you or not.

I hope it speaks to you or someone you know.

This past year was difficult for many, in so many ways, on so many levels; so let’s be for each other buckets of water to together throw onto the dumpster fire that was 2016.–hollie