Live Kindly to Your Poor Internal Bastard

There are moments where sadness and loneliness wrap themselves around me with the same heavy dampness of a wet blanket. Sucking joy and thankfulness. When tears are on the precipice, ready to gush at the first hearing of a familiar, safe voice. One of the many reasons I rarely call friends or family. That's how I know I'm not ok.

I don't always balance well between proper independent adulthood, and the truth that no human is an emotional island. I love my self-reliance, but I'm reminded in these moments of how much I need people. Though, not simply people en-mass. I am not such a natural extrovert. I deal with 'en-mass' humans everyday on the streets of New York City. Rather, it's my tribe, my people, my humans of like-mindedness that I seek.

But since my exit from active church life about one year ago, I've found it challenging to maintain relationships outside of that community. Relationships from within were still at times strained, but as long as commonalities of beliefs were shared, there was still effort made in maintaining friendships. For any number of reasons--I will not assume motivations--those extensions have withered. And without any cynicism, I can genuinely say that this breaks my heart. It saddens me to think that because I no longer hold many of their shared beliefs, I am now considered an outsider and no longer worthy of the effort of relationship.

I have spent much of this Thanksgiving holiday alone. And in truth, resisted a great pressure toward loneliness and feeling a bit sorry for myself. I stemmed it off quite well, but today gave way to a call to my sister, and pent-up tears that were completely unconscious. Our bodies know, far better than we do.  And I am thankful for that; thankful for physical cues that tell us we're off-kilter somewhere. 

As I spoke with her, I was struck by her empathy and affirmation. Gentle, understanding, and kind. God as woman; when women are the reflections of the divine. I needed that. I needed to be listened to and heard, not fixed. So the tears I didn't even know I had, came.

I crave safety. I crave understanding. I crave knowing myself more fully. To value, cherish, and protect this one life of mine. Setting it in my heart to find and enjoy the wisdom, character, and life found within this mind and personality; knowing thyself.

And beautifully and vulnerably, it will naturally be shared, as it was today.

There is great wealth within me. And even if it is never shared with another human being, it values no less. For the wealth of me, is me.