Love Afraid

Something happened inside of my heart, and I haven’t been able to hide it.

Something happened inside of my heart this month, and I haven’t been able to hide it. In every picture, I was smiling like I’d won the damn lottery. The comments poured in by the hundreds.

“You are glowing!”

“What’s the secret?”

“Is there something we should know?”

…and, of course, “MK…are you in love?”

It’s funny when that inside out sort of light starts shining like a damn supernova. You can’t exactly shove it under the covers and hope to God nobody sees it.

There’s color in my face, there’s music in my heart.

I throw my head back and laugh like a kid.

The world feels so gentle and kind, these days.

Am I in love?

I mean, yes. So much yes.

But I’m pretty sure y’all already knew that.

What nobody seems to know, including my own traumatized mind, is what I should do with this information.

This is brand new territory for me, falling in love as a grown up with baggage.

I’m no longer a starstruck school girl with my head in the clouds and nothing to lose. My eyes are wide open to the risks and reward of whole heartedly owning these feelings. I have offered my heart to another before, and it was returned to me dead on a platter.

Over time, I realized that was mostly my fault. The staying in a broken relationship. It took me far too long to understand that my soul was worth putting up my own fight. And when I woke up to that reality, and started really grappling with the damage—it astounded me how much had been lost.

Not the relationship, which was long since dead—but my youth, my innocence, myself.

Over and over, for years and years, I silenced the screaming inside of me. Pushed it down deep in the name of making peace, in the name of preserving what I had. And the more I ignored her, the less she spoke up. Until finally, she just went quiet.

I called it peace.

Actually, it was more like death.

Imagine being unheard in your own freaking mind. I can’t tell you what a mess that creates.

It took time, so much time, to coax my voice back.

But now I am listening hard.

I listen to my body when my chest feels light, and I know that my soul is unfurling.

I listen to the safety I feel in my bones cause my heart has found a soft landing place.

I hear my own laughter, so childlike and pure, pouring out from the joy I’ve discovered.

And I hear my trauma, too. That doesn’t go away, though its signals are less clear. More like an ever-present radio static. Occasionally, some messages break through all the static from some far other side of my soul.

“He’s going to leave you.”

“You are annoying and unlovable.”

“This is too complicated.”

“Your life is too much.”

I hear it, and I process it.

Who knows if it’s true?

It isn’t today, I do know that much.

but tomorrow?

or what about the next day?

When is that shoe going to drop?

And that’s when I feel a tightness in my chest, and the whispers in my mind to just run. Despite the safety and the love and affection, my body remembers my grief. How I spent so many hours on a sad shower floor watching pints of ice cream wash down the drain. I can’t blame that girl who lost her own voice for thinking this is all too dangerous. She wants me to enjoy the flavor of ice cream and the color of leaves in the fall.

“But this isn’t that,” I tell her, internally.

“Sure,” she replies. “That’s what you thought last time.”

Last week, my love and I were talking about hope—specifically how much he adores it. After all the hell that life has dealt this man, he still thinks the concept is beautiful.

I wanted to agree, but my body just couldn’t, so I told him.

“I think hope is toxic.”

And then he smiled and told me in such plain terms, “That’s because you give hope expectations. Open ended hope...that’s what I’m talking about.”

Open ended hope.

Well, that changes everything.

That really strips fear of its power.

Open ended hope says “I’m in love, and it’s right and beautiful and good” without forcing it down the damn aisle.

Open ended hope is soaking up every moment, without wondering how soon it will die.

It’s right here, and it’s right now, and it’s the coming alive and being present with the blood in your cheeks.

I’m in love, and it’s scary, but that’s right where I want to be.

Big feelings with no expectations.

I freaked out last week when all the comments came in, assigning big meaning to my joy. It was fair, because y’all weren’t wrong, there’s a light in my eyes that comes from the deep. I’m happy y’all see that.

But I recovered my color before I met him, and I know now, it’s going to stay with me. No matter what happens on this blind, curving road, I am present for it, body and soul.

I won’t disassociate my way through this second half of life. I know too acutely what a loss that would be.

I am carrying it all, and I’m holding it loosely.

I can carry it all at one time.

The love. The hope. The fear.

The trauma. The risk. The reward.

All of it.

The waters are deep.

And sure, love is scary.

But to live is to jump in afraid.

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Dear readers,

Writing is my livelihood, and it means the world to me that you’re here. I will always keep my writing paywall free, because I don’t feel like there should be a barrier for receiving encouragement. But for those who choose the paid support option, thank you for keeping my lights on.

Not just in my little house, but inside my heart, as well.

Love,

Mary Katherine