Made of Love

I often have said this over the years, that I’m Made of Love.

One so all-encompassing I couldn’t wish harm on anyone, it’s just not something that ever springs to mind.

Like my son, I am empathy on two stuttering feet, absorbing the air around me and everything in it. I radiate love outward, patience, kindness, consideration, these are second nature.

I give and give of myself, wishing only the best on others. Hoping that my energy and companionship, whatever level that happened to be, will make the lives of others better. That I can touch the world with a color that isn’t easily forgotten, that I’d become a stain of sunset that streaks the cornea long after the night has fallen.

I didn’t want to be forgotten, so I have always given all of me, as much as I could, for approval and attention. Until I was a stranger to myself, and a little of everything to everyone else. It meant something and as long as they needed me they would have parts of me.

And then I left Her. I left the one I wanted to give everything to, all of me, and I came back to my son. I left behind mementos, treasured books, parts of my history, pieces of my ancestors. I left my heart. I left her the month before a pandemic took the world in its squeeze, before a freeze isolated us all in Texas for a week, and I looked around and realized how MUCH I had given.

To everyone. So much that there was nothing left for me. Nothing left of the girl I loved so passionately as a child, even though she was still there, waiting. She’d given all of her as well, from a very young age being told who she was and what life would be for her, without ever knowing that there is a choice. I didn’t know there was a choice.

I fell and fawned, I gifted my all until my vessel was empty. And remembered there were emptier days decades before, ones I filled with stories and books and wild places. When teachers at school were harridan-like monsters who would torment me in front of the class, and my peers saw me as an easy target. Which I was. I didn’t have it in me to fight or to be cruel. I was made of love, after all.

That little girl still sits in a corner of my mind, covering her ears with her hands and singing herself a refrain of comfort “Why can’t we all just get along?”, over and over again.

I thought it was safest to show my compliance, my willingness, my service, and so I gave it freely. I gave to humans until I didn’t have anything left. And turned with empty hands to look, and there they were, waiting, my books and my wild places. My serenity in solitude.

There I was alone, in Texas, frozen into place in February. I turned within, I drove myself a little mad, I cried holding myself tight to trees, just to have something living to wrap my arms around that could stand with me through the storms. No one else could see them, they raged within me.

And now…I find myself realizing months later that for some time instead of pouring all of this love into others I’m finally pouring it into myself. It took the storms to allow myself to save me.

This infinite love that grew and multiplied outwards and towards others reflected on the ice outside until I realized that I never had enough for everyone, but I always had enough for the little girl who was made of tenderness. And the women I’ve become and left behind, there is enough for them too.

They deserve peace. They deserve forgiveness. They deserve this infinite giving. They deserve me.

I deserve this love.

I’ve been told over and over by my parents while growing up how selfish I am. I feel selfish most days. But I’m learning that peace isn’t selfish. Giving to myself isn’t selfish. Gifting the solitude and room for my own thoughts in a world so very full of everyone else’s noise is necessary. It is essential.

And even though I still feel the first spark of fawning and giving to others when they hand me their “Asks” I have to step back and remember to hold enough for myself first.

I cannot pour from an empty cup.

And I’m filling, slowly.