Hey you.
First: Not much brand new in the shop this week, but there’s still quite a few pens and Moss Agate Talismans left for gifting (to yourself or others) and the Snowflakes are still available. I’ve been working on the orders that have been coming in pretty steadily, so we’re still on schedule there, too.
And off we go.
I’ve mentioned before, in occasional tweets and messages, how my relationship with my late husband, Steve, was transformative. It’s an often used word in guru and coach circles, and in self help articles – and even in the 20’s Influencer spaces sometimes. It’s acquired something of a love and light vibe as a result, as if changing the pieces of who you are is something anyone can just choose to do.
I chose that word with some careful consideration for the full breadth of its meaning, however. If you’ve ever undergone genuine transformation, you know it’s anything but easy. It’s not light, it’s not fun, it’s not something you do between retreats and spa days. Genuine transformation finds a handhold in you, often through your most vulnerable wounds and needs, grabs with all its strength, and then pulls.
Sometimes we resist. We dig our heels in and refuse, and in those cases, transformation breaks pieces of us off as it drags us forward. Other times, we go willingly, having decided what we are pulled towards is worth the loss of those parts of us we shed, however difficult the growth might be. Regardless of how we respond, transformation doesn’t take no for an answer without an extremely high cost paid for its trouble; plenty of times, even if you say no, some part of you will still be changed.
Change like that is painful and terrifying. Often, we’d give anything to not undergo it.
So when I say that relationship was transformative, I mean that in the full sense of the word. It was hard. As incredible as he was, and as much as we loved each other, the growth and struggle and change and pain were just as much a part of what that relationship was to me as the love.
However, the love was what made it worth it. Love was the handhold that transformation grabbed. There were times I thought it’d break me. There were times it did break me. There were times I thought I was out of patience, of compassion, of hope, of courage, of strength. There were times when I didn’t know if I could hold space for his broken parts any more, where I didn’t know if I could take one more deep breath and explain or wait or seek a deeper compassion for things he couldn’t control.
I’ve experienced similar in my closest and dearest friendships – and I know they have with me, as well. This experience isn’t exclusive to romantic or partnered relationships. This happens in families, with friends, with found family. If they matter to you, if you would grieve their loss, if your days would be less for their absence, you love them.
Loving another person, really loving another person, is hard because it’s transformative.
Love is transformative – and hard – because it asks that we allow for each other’s humanity and flaws, even as we confront and wrestle with our own.That we see them and we learn them, and we learn how to be patient with each other, even, and especially, when we are standing shoulder to shoulder, mired in the other’s struggle with the forces inside them that they cannot control. To love someone is to recognize their humanity while simultaneously allowing for our own. It is recognizing where we have room to grow in order to not contribute to or deepen the wounds in those we love. Love demands that we heal ourselves even as it demands that we allow for the unhealed parts in those we love. Love demands that effort, and you will crucify and wound those you say you love until you learn how.
Being loved is what holds us safe while we learn to do this. To know that you are not expected to be perfect, that you are seen and known and accepted as is – from one changing moment to the next – is the shelter that makes deep transformation possible. To know that it is safe to be flawed-yet-learning, to feel safe even in a state of flux and transformation is incomparable – it is to feel loved. Being loved can teach you a level of compassion you can’t quite learn any other way, compassion for yourself and for others. To feel loved gives us an example for how to love in return, if we’re willing to follow it. Being loved also holds a space we all need in order to confront the parts of us that wound, that are wounded, the places we become reactionary, and the parts of us that are hidden in shame, those broken sharp edges we hide away because we have never felt safe enough to admit we have them, at least not long enough to find a way to piece them back together or set them aside.
Loving is transformative; it demands we accept what is, with all its flaws, while also insisting we grow to better love those around us. It is mirror and truth-teller, seer and oracle, a surgeon excising the parts of our soul and psyche that we discover are necrotic or frostbitten, to allow for healing we may not have even realized we needed. Being loved is the bandage and balm, the salve that takes some of the sting away – it is what will drag us into surgery so we don’t infect those we love with the same.
It is possible to love and be transformed even when not loved in that same way in return – if you can hold that space for yourself while loving another.
That teaches you strength.
I hope I don’t have to learn that kind of strength again, and I hope you don’t need to, as well.
A. Markov
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