Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder: On Being Strong Enough to Hold Love Long

I'm feeling such deep, deep gratitude, humility, emotion and love right now.

Sometimes, it is hard to set boundaries with people and to love them so much from a far.

But what is true is that, any and every time it's had to be done: It works out exactly how it needs to, and some.

Tonight I met up with someone I consider family. She and I lived together in three different places over the course of years and experienced one death of a friend between us.

Three years ago, we had to part ways for a while and both promised each other that it was with the intent of being in each other's lives again in the future.

Tonight, when she sat across from me for the first time in three years and told me the things she told me, I felt so completely humbled. She told me what our relationship to each other had meant, how it has impacted how she has interacted with people since then. I told her the things I learned from her, and the things I have been thinking about since we had to part ways for a bit.

My friends have all known that, eventually, she and I would be reconnected and each one of them made a mention of their excitement that she was back into the fold.

It feels really good to have had years of love with someone, to have gotten to a point of recognizing we needed to give our relationship space and time, and to come back with the love more mature, complex and present.

I think the thing that got me the most (the thing that brought some tears  balancing on the lashes of my eyes) was when she thanked me for having the boundaries I had with her when I did.

I needed to hear that. On so many levels, and for so many reason.

It's odd how the timing of something can support and salve something completely unrelated.

She told me that I gave her space to be and feel what she was and felt and that I encouraged her to share her feelings and to tell people what she wanted and needed.

(pause)

It felt good to have the conversations we needed to but couldn't at the time. Our apologies to each other. Our forgiveness. It is deep. It is true. It is what life and relationships are made of.

I'm just feeling really grateful and really proud of her, of me, and of us.

Sometimes, holding on to each other from afar, no matter how sad or hard it can feel, can be one of the most loving and radical things we can offer each other.

I'm so, so glad to have her home again. The love is so full and so deep, it is palpable.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Here is to loving in ways we never imagined we could.


Always,

k.
(image: Frederico Garcia Lorca Antoni Tapies, Ernest Altes)