isserley🍁

The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.

“I found out I was in love with you, winter before last,” she said. “I wasn’t going to say anything about it because - well, you know. If you felt anything like that for me, you’d have known I did. But it wasn’t both of us. So there was no good in it. But then, when you told us you’re leaving… At first I thought, all the more reason to say nothing. But then I thought, that wouldn’t be fair. To me, partly. Love has a right to be spoken. And you have a right to know that somebody loves you. That somebody has loved you, could love you. We all need to know that. Maybe it’s what we need most.”