i know i have been silent of late. sometimes silence is what speaks the most clearly. in silence we hear pain, preoccupation, sadness, and reflection. we can hear exuberance, enjoying life, breathing in beauty, and appreciation. i am afraid my absence and silence has been one like the former. i have felt pain and sadness in depths i did not know were possible to reach. i have been preoccupied with mourning and reflecting-pondering my life and its meaning. my heart has yet to heal from pain of loving someone who does not feel the same toward me. it has been up and down and i am afraid our friendship has suffered because of my honesty and forthrightness. but that pain was nothing to the dagger which pierced my heart at 3:00 on a friday afternoon in june. i lost her. my grandmother. someone who believed in me more than anyone else. someone who loved me. someone who was proud of me. someone who did not know the secret i have been hiding - a piece of who i am, a big piece. yet i know that it was best to keep it from her.
this is one of the most difficult losses i have faced. while processing and trying to understand the suddenness, the stinging absence of goodbyes, the plans to visit the next week, and the depth and intensity of the pain, i was able to learn more about the why of mourning. i lost a little bit of love coming my way. i lost one hug, one singing call on my birthday, one "i love you", one fan of me and everything i do... as the losses pile up, there is a bankruptcy of belief which is building inside of me - belief in myself, belief in the goodness, belief in the beauty...
but also in the loss, there is a new hug, a reconnection, a new "i love you", an extra phone call, a card in the mail, one supporter of me and everything i am feeling and experiencing... as the friends show up and continue to check in even weeks later, the deficit is shrinking inside of me - and i believe in love, in friendship, in goodness and beauty...
i never have been one to actually be good at living each day as if it were my last. a new thought came to me today. what if i lived everyday as if it were your last? my friend's last? my family's last? that girl who is hurting: her last? what if we all lived that way?
sometimes when i am out in public i get paranoid and wonder if i am naked in front of everyone - if they know i am a lesbian. if they can see who i am and who i love. are they looking at me in a malicious way? last week, i was at the grocery store and a woman who was probably in her late 50s passed me by and smiled. not just any smile. i felt like she loved me. she doesn't know me, and i don't know her. but, she loved me anyway.
this might not seem like it is on the topic of reconciliation and hope for the lesbian and gay community and the church. but i think it is exactly what we need to be talking about. it's this kind of love and appreciation for life that will heal us. it's realizing that i want to love that way. i want other people to see my smile and feel loved. i want to live my life as if it is your last day. i want to add beauty and goodness and hope and peace to the places where there has been a deficit of faith and an abundance of pain. i want to inspire and teach others to do the same. i want to change the world. my world. your world. the world we create together. the real kingdom of god that jesus talked about and lived- made up of the most marginalized and hated people in society.
love. love. love. gather. create. hope. believe. have mercy. give grace. establish peace. act justly. draw in. inspire. love. love. love.
Wow. What a different but important concept of living our lives like it is your last day, not mine. It is definitely less selfish and more loving to human kind. I like it. I think this is something I will try. I will keep you posted..
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I have had both of those experiences, unrequited love and the loss of my grandmother. I could use your words to describe her and my relationship with her. I never told her about me. she must have known though. she was the smartest and most loving person I've known, my hero. it is amazing the depth of human emotion, one moment elation, the next despair. I have wondered sometimes if everyone can feel as deeply as I do, as deeply as you describe. some people seem oblivious to so many things. I wonder, are they better off? then I think, if we can feel these emotions and think these thoughts then there are others who can as well. God gave us the capacity to feel as deeply as we do and to help those others who are struggling. to help those who don't know God, those who do and those who want to. and to show those who think they know God the beauty of the complex and diverse beings He created in His image even though we are different from them. to show them that love, gay and straight is love and that all love comes from God.
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