Because I left so little space within my travel days, my heart came to me, after midnight, in a hotel room, just off the highway, through my dreams.
A beautiful half-moon curve–freshly carved, into my left breast—tender, swollen, reddened—but more than likely healing.
So many times I’ve been told that I didn’t love “right.”
(Haven’t we all!)
And yet, my heart hollers back:
ALL evidence to the contrary…!
Haven’t you loved the same man for 32 years.
Haven’t you raised 2 amazing sons with whom you share the same abiding love, mutual respect & fierce boundaries.
And what of the friendships that still flower to this day, those begun 40 (forty!) years ago, and what about those emerging & unfolding even now.
And what of the generations of students & companions—in the classroom, on the mat, on the page.
And what of your youth—POURED into the parenting gap left by trauma, narcissism & addiction–into the lives half-dozen+ younger siblings until, one by one, they too came of age.
YOU, Kelly KNOW how to LOVE!
“That’s right!” I respond, “I do!”
And love is not only proximity, my heart replies.
Sometimes love is leaving space.
Sometimes love is letting go.
Sometimes love is feeling YES and stamping NO.
‘Yes, I love you,’ and ‘No, you may not traipse across the terrain of my tender heart just because you are lost.’
Yes, ‘Your happiness is my happiness,’ and Yes, ‘Your heartache is my heartache,’ but ‘No, my heart cannot serve as the safe house for the projection of your unmet needs, your scarcities, fears, and grief.
Which is to say that I find myself in unfamiliar territory, no doubt in large part due to the passage from Mother to Menopause which arrives on the precipice of an Empty Nest, and returns my heart to its original and departing purpose— loving—me.
“But aren’t you afraid of going to hell?” I was once asked.
“How can I be afraid of something in which I do not believe?” I replied.
Which is to say that there is a mythology of love and abandonment to which I no longer wish to subscribe.
Love is never absent.
Love ABIDES.
Two Owls Calling 