Perspective...Pivot...Permission...Love

We're all adults here, so let's embrace nudity. The freedom it entails, and the revelations it brings. This year has been the hardest year of my life, and I didn't even know that was possible, but it has also been the most beautiful year of my life, and I am permanently grateful. For as long as I can remember, my passion has allowed me to become shortsighted. Leading me to believe that beauty, value, and goodness can only be if xyz accompanies it. Boy, was I wrong. When I couldn't find love, I found perspective, and when I couldn't find perspective, I found a pivot. And on one gloomy, rainy day, scented with the leaves cologne passed down from generations, I found permission. The permission to be honest with myself without judgment and scoffing. In that conversation with myself, I began to understand the true meaning of love. Love is honest and in many ways, I was dishonest with myself. Afraid that admitting to my bad habits, and at times abusive relationship with myself meant that I was succumbing to it. But it wasn't true. Love isn't control, but it doesn't palliate either, leading me back to my curiosity with black-and-white thinking... it had to be one or the other. But it wasn't true. Love is perspective, and embracing that perspective produces a pivot.... but I wasn't ready to move. Sometimes my pain became my comfort, I idolized it because I believed the lie that worth is found in tragedy, when worth is something that always belonged to me. I oozed worthiness when my latest purse couldn't store it. Sitting with myself and letting the noise be that... noise made it easier to love myself and begin the process of self-acceptance. I cannot love myself if I'm dishonest, and I cannot love you either. Beginning the process of seeing myself as a human experiencing life, and not a negative experience, left me with an epiphany. I wasn't stuck, I just wasn't ready to move. Sometimes transformation feels like stagnancy, but this year I've consistently been on the move. I am a "lover girl" through and through, I love love, the passion, compassion, fullness, and richness it harbors. I want to make space for love and better understand its native language so that I can continually give it and speak it to myself, and those who mean the world to me. And still, I'll never be fully healed, but I'll always be worthy... and that realization is healing entirely.

Thumbnail Credentials: Markus Spiske