The Love I Have Been Waiting For
It is spring. The time of green shoots and blooming. When nature asks us to let go of the cold and the fear, and present ourselves, raw, in our newness and our vulnerability. No expectations. No demands. Only the slow beauty of a petal emerging from a tightly woven bulb.
To me it feels like an invitation to be more honest, to be more present. To be here now. In this moment. I have noticed it for some time now. Whispers in the wind, a quiet voice deep inside, asking me to trust that I am safe, that I am fully rooted; and to breathe new life into this opening in fertile ground. And I have been listening, allowing that voice to guide me more and more. Though there are moments of fear, this growth somehow feels easy. And refreshing. Like freedom.
Everything I seek is now. This is the deep truth I am learning to live.
There is no arrival when it comes to the elusive destinations of freedom and peace, and love. They flow in the ecstasy and the laughter and the lovemaking, yes. But they are also mixed in the mundane: in the hours of the workweek; in the buying of groceries and the making of meals. They are the hands holding heartbreak and anxiety and depression. Hidden in resistance and procrastination. Buried in busyness. Flowing in the moment lonely eyes meet the glance of a stranger. Shouting in the quiet hours of a sleepless night.
There is no arrival. No destination. Simply a letting go; an allowance; a permission. An ownership of who I am, and of now.
After years of running and striving, I can say this: you will not love life more if it turns out as you imagined, as you dearly wished, as you sought and strived for it to be. Upon arrival you will only seek and wish and strive for it to be some other, greater, version.
No, the thing we seek is not seekable; it is not reachable, by trying.
A certain amount of effort is required to find love and freedom and peace, but this effort is more accurately described as the courage to let go, the willingness to listen to our own truth, and the permission to be okay in this moment, with all of its imperfections.
There is no other now. Only now. Here. Nothing more.
I do still desire things I do not have in this moment. Some fiercely. I still want to go places. I have dreams and goals. I keep my vision in my heart and my eyes on the horizon. I am committed. And I work hard. I am not stagnant. I am in massive amounts of action. I am doing and experiencing and creating and living and loving, fully, and powerfully, with a fierce forward momentum.
And, yet, I am not waiting to get there, or anywhere. I am no longer holding out for some future moment to be fully alive. I live now. Here. In this moment.
This is it: this devotion, this intimate dance with life. This is the peace. This is the freedom. This is the love I have been waiting for, my entire life.
xo,
Danielle