March 21st, 2018
So much of what I’ve been writing about — especially since the election times of 2016 and the aftermath of what has followed in our political climate, the
#MeToo movement, and many other divisive issues — has focused on dissolving the
story of separation and bringing us back together in love; not a “
spiritual bypassing” kind of fake love, but the real love that comes when you’re brave enough to ask
“What’s it like to be you?” and really care about the answer,
generously listening in a way that opens your heart and evokes genuine compassion.
I am an
empath, so when we as a culture are so divided, I feel it in my own body, as if my physical body is being pulled apart. I’m learning to have better
psychic boundaries so I don’t have to feel so deeply the pain that does not belong to my personal body, but I still think it’s important that we’re willing to feel the pain of the collective so we can respond to it, recognize that something hurts inside, and tend to what hurts, so it can get healed.
With this as one of my
primary missions here on earth — to help dissolve the story of separation and reunite us into a real, genuine love — you can imagine how my heart leapt wildly, with intense “YES! YES! YES!” gratitude, when one of my 2018 Visionary Mentoring Clients, Noelle Newby, sent me what she had just written. I’ve never published someone else’s writing before, but sometimes, your Inner Pilot Light just says
“Now. This.”
So… without further ado, I feel grateful to be able to broadcast this message of love from Noelle to her high school sweetheart. Take it away, Noelle!
I loved you before:
Before Twitter, Trump, “I’m with Her,” “Build the Wall,” MSNBC, Fox News, and #fakenews.
Before I knew there were wars to wage, sides to choose and casualties to count.
Before either of us could cast, much less comprehend the impact a checked ballot box could have on connection, community, and consciousness.
Before vitriol became the primary, preferred means of collective communication.
Before cell phones, selfies and Bro Country; the latter of which I imagine you hate, almost as much as you hate me.
Our love was once pure, flawed, gut-wrenching and gorgeous, living long after we were each other’s one and only. Through decades we morphed from star-crossed, to friends, to a kind of family. You taught me many a tender tenant; to love and be loved with reckless abandon, that heartbreaks both hurt and heal, to laugh until I cry, that “chicka-ba, chicka-ba, no chi no” were not lyrics to Charlie Daniel’s “Devil Went Down to Georgia,” and that no matter the scars, love endured.
For 25 years, I’ve kept every penned letter, picture and playbill with your likeness or name; not because I longed for you, but because remembering us erases age. The part of me that loves you is forever seventeen — innocent, vibrant and alive with the hope and promise of a life well lived and loved. Of course, there’s a woman here now too. She’s wiser, wider, and worn. Her love is more fierce than frivolous. She craves control and comfort in her sweet, hard-manifested life, fracturing with fear at the ultimate undoing of it all. We’re an enigma, this woman-child. Together we see this world in Technicolor, both for what it is, and what it’s meant to be. Better or worse, our world includes you.
Even though we’re now the “other” in your existence, a grey-glob comprised of half the country and all you loathe. No longer unique. No longer cherished. A once cosmic connection, evaporated in a social-media-minute.
