What she needs is compassion.
What I want to give her are my observations.
What she needs is patience.
What I want to give her is a prescription on how to improve her life.
What she needs is love.
What I want to give her is my firm feedback.
These are the things I witness in myself, whether I’m on the giving or receiving ends of each scenario. We experience a constant and ever shifting evolution of how we relate to ourselves and others. We learn through the people around us. We can hide from the world when our feelings are difficult and come up with excuses as to why we do better alone —but without a doubt we become kinder humans when we’re willing to grow in our relationships.
If we live a life that’s immersed in growth we are going to spend the rest of our lives working on our relationships. Whether it’s as a parent, lover, partner, friend, or family member, all relationships have the opportunity to grow into new and exciting iterations of themselves. Regardless of the evolutions we achieve, we will have many challenges and many opportunities to become more tuned into ourselves.
Our life will be a combination of good, hard, painful, silly, glorious, and hot mess moments; the people in our lives will forever impact the way we see, touch, taste, and imagine the world.
Relationships will change us; some will tear us down until we barely recognize the present versions of ourselves, but we will find ourselves in the wreckage, in the place between where we were and where we’re going. The storms will forever change us, as will the dark and lonely nights, the endless years of confusion and the countless heartbreaks from not being who we desperately want to be.
The savage spirit will throw us into the wilderness, clinging to what we once knew. But we’ll never find that person again, and we’ll be all alone, cold and scared, digging in the deep soil for our god. We’ll have travel that will lead us to the deepest spiritual journeys and we might experience the dark in a way that it feels like a version of hell, not a path to salvation.
Taking in moments of refuge whenever they arrive.
If we stay in it, if we don’t try to unravel motives or make sense of the incomprehensible, we’ll find part of the truth about ourselves and realize that the entire journey was being guided by love — a love like nothing we’ve ever experienced, one that breaks open our hearts so wide that we never knew love could be our salvation.
We arrive on the other side, so slowly that we don’t even realize we made it through. It just is; we were and now we are. Forever changed, the storm has passed and we didn’t notice the transition because it moved with a slowness that felt like it would never end. It was so slow that it softened without us taking notice.
It ends by being a reclamation of ourselves. We find our true selves, not the ones we thought we had to be.
The next time you think you know what someone needs, remember that we’re only looking through what we know, not what they know. Their truths are meant to arrive on different maps than the ones we use.
The next time she needs compassion, give her attention.
The next time she needs patience, give her space to speak and feel.
The next time she needs love, hold her tight — even if she’s messy.
With love, Noelle