you & me

Reminders for a Tender Heart.

{source via Julie Faulkner}

 

I am angry and I am hardened. Teeth clenched. Heart fire roaring loudly. I am furrowed brows and strong glares and waving fists at bad drivers.

I am forgetting the the tenderness. The sweet petals of compassion that used to ooze from my fingertips  are no longer there.

I am angry and I am impatient. The rage is seeping out in heavy, heavy doses because some days I wonder how we are all going to make it through.

I wonder if my brain will soon get quiet or if i’ll just have to live forever with the loud hissing of these anxious riddles.

I wonder how our breaths actually find each other, one after the next.

I wonder how our hearts dont just explode or swell to the point of no return.

But there is beauty in the becoming and in the breaking. In the waiting. In the lingering air before the inhale. Gaze firmly into the wreckage. Keep the chaos alive in your throat and don’t swallow until you feel it become a part of you. Until it is primal. Until you feel the guttural yelp clench your throat muscles.

Look, I know we are all in so much pain. So much pain. But we are also in so much love, aren’t we? Let one grow bigger and taller and stronger than the other. Think about the love.

Love as water, buyant and soft but also fierce and serious. Encapsulating and enchanting. Love as fire; it will transfix you without doing a single thing all the while doing everything. It will consume you.  I want to tell you that love is everything, so I will:

Love is everything. Love is everything. Repeat this on your good days and bad ones, too.

As soon as you start thinking that this year could’ve been better, please remember the mountains and the valleys and the setbacks and the triumphs that got you to the exact patch of land that you inhabit now. Feel your feet hover over the ground and bask in the texture across your toes, whatever it may be. This. Here. Now. None of it was accidental nor in vain. You are forever stretching, growing, breathing, evolving. You are not to be wrapped up in yesterday, not matter how comfortable the cloth may be.

You are here and now and ready and willing..

You are a newer, kinder, softer, sweeter leaf that is not dependent on the date on the calendar but that will still be in tune with it for the sake of ritual.

You are a braver body craving strength and the earth. And words, always words words words.

You are an appreciation for the kindness of this season and a vow to ink it onto your skin for the rest of the year and forever after that

You are an unmuffled laughter. A loud ass sob that you could not and did not want to control because tear salt lubrciates your face and keeps your skin hydrated and healthy. Who wouldnt want that?

You are a bruised but beautiful and bare beating heart. Ready and ripe for the world to trample over it, but hopeful for the impeccable kindness that we are all so capable of.

You are a collective sign of relief that we are in these bodies and feeling these feelings and living this life.

You are a humbed mantra held close to your chest to feel the radiating warmth of your heart as it heals you. The words, whispered at first and then coming out in full fledged screeches, be the light. Be the light. Be the light.

You are the balance of the tight rope of your heart. You are the delicate perplexity of hardened scars and fresh open wounds all mixed together to form the most intricate blend of hope, hurt and rage.

You are with me. Swapping heart stories. You are telling me about your aches and i’m telling you about my breaks and we are laugh crying at the absurdity of the world today because everything seems to be on fire and not in that good, warm way.

You are cross legged in the cozy light of my living room, listing all the love we’ve missed out on my being too scared. Too scared of the light and the dark because when it intertwines it sometimes makes new colors that we aren’t used to and our eyes take some time to adjust.

You are meeting loneliness with compassion and meeting darkness not with light but with patience patience patience and you are letting it flow through you like water – untamed.

You are also worried because there was a time when you felt everything too much and now you are terrified of not feeling enough and of complacency and “i’m fine” rather than “i’m fucking ecstatic about everything”

But holy heart magic, you are everything. As you are. Here. Now.

You are traveling through the dark caverns of your mind and you are making it out alive. You are crawling through the murky brain space of depression and sleeping in the tear drenched delusion of “tomorrow will be better” even though tomorrow only ever seems to be more of the same kind of bad. You are ready for when, eventually, your heart grows too achy and your lungs too tired and your tear ducts too dry to keep up with all the bad so your body forces it out.

You are smiling because the world is terrified and basically all on fire and yet here we are, intact and ready to put up a good fight.

You are remembering in the magic that happens when a human is loved well. You are loving well and that’s all you can do. You are doing all of this with the sheer heart power you found deep within your very own self.

You are remembering the ever growing list of fear and pain and hatred and volatility from this past year because it cannot be ignored but neither can the complete goodness of how we loved ruthlessly; how we loved with conviction and purpose.

You are everything good keeping you alive.

You are taking impeccable care of yourself, aren’t you?

***

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Julie Faulkner

Julie Faulkner

Julie Faulkner is raw, unfiltered kindness. She is a soft culmination of mermaid hair, dark eyes, floral dresses, and a lack of hand-eye coordination. She prefers hugs to handshakes, and she makes the best sad song playlists. She loves breakfast food all day, and will always prefer pancakes at dingy diners to five-star fanciness. She believes that there is nothing more attractive than good conversation, vulnerability, and bright-eyed wonder (and boys with really good teeth, don’t judge). She also probably loves you already. Connect with her via Facebook or purchase her book via Amazon.
Julie Faulkner

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