practice radical self-love

in the fall we carve pumpkins, pick apples, and sip cider entangled on the couch. the air is cooling around us but we feel nothing but a warm yellow glow. it encompasses everything. in the afternoons you don’t work, you bake, covering everything in flour or cinnamon or sage. you are happier than i have ever seen you.

with you, there is nothing i cannot do. with each touch, each breath of reassurance, the world around me opens up. i see colors and lights and choices i never saw before. we bring each other safety and light and laughter, and with that, the world becomes ours for the taking.

we spend our lives learning each other, so that we may always know how to help. you know which flavor of sports drink like when i’m miserable and sick, and i know which meals to prepare when you feel too sad to really eat. you know when to warm my heated blanket for me before i come home, and i know what music to play to get you out of a funk. we are always finding new ways to take care of each other.

we are at peace. the bad days come and go, mere punctuation between weeks and months or even years of good days. i can sleep again. you breathe easier than you have in a lifetime. home is no longer somewhere we dread to be; it is a feeling we carry with us. a love we never dreamed would be ours, but now rests safely between our lungs.

and one day, i realize, i am not afraid anymore. when i wake in the morning, i hear only the birds singing, and not the mournful space in between unreturned calls. outside, i see only the nourishing sun, and not the oppressive heat i’ve come to loathe. i look at you, and i only see the ways you love me, not the ways i once feared you would leave me. i am secure. i am whole. i am safe.

we work hard, we struggle, and hardest of all we wait. but one night, suddenly, we find ourselves able to breathe easier. to rest deeper. i’m afraid to think the words “we made it”, to jinx them out of being, but you curl into me and lay your head on the plain of my chest and the words flow out anyway. and we know that they’re true.

day by day, we put our home together. every night when we fall asleep, we do so in a place that feels a little more like ours.

be kind. be ridiculously, radically, endlessly kind. be a part of someone’s good day. send nice thoughts, send positive vibes, send support and love and well wishes. be kind. so often we wish for tomorrow to be a good day when we are at our lowest. some sort of sign that it gets better. be a part of that better day for someone. the world does not magically decide that it will be softer on you today, tomorrow, the next day. and sometimes it starts with a message from someone else, maybe a little bit of inner strength to pull yourself up and take a shower, maybe a bit of sunlight makes the day better. but it’s these small things, these soft things that make a day better. so be kind. don’t ever think about being anything other than kind. be a part of someone’s good day because you don’t know how desperate they might be for it.