Maybe you feel like giving up. Maybe at last you’ve had enough. Not feeling good enough to be seen. If someone saw you, they wouldn’t approve. So you decide to keep that from happening. Or maybe there’s something you feel you can never say. So you suffer alone with it and people never know why. Why it is they don’t see you. But it’s all grown so tiring now. You’ve sworn to get up on that horse. It’s a new year’s promise, and yet that was a week ago. And your world is only getting smaller. Whatever people see in you that is good, you feel it must be illusion. While everyone is being so good, and letting you know just how wonderful they are – eating right and taking care of the earth – you quietly wish to simply crawl under it. Underneath all the protests and agitations, a game of look how good I am. Sure to be seen on your devices. You wish it would all just go away, including you. So few seem real, and you’re afraid to trust the ones who are. For fear they’ll see right through you. Maybe you’ve suffered so much loss, and you’re afraid of losing more. Guarding what’s left, behind a closed door. You’re sure you’re ugly and terrible and embarrassingly out of shape. While everyone else glows. This is somebody else’s show. There’s no real point for you to be here. So you yell and you storm – and you feel bad that you did – and that makes it worse. Maybe you cry, and you let it all out, finally. And somehow that helps. There’s something about surrendering to the feeling. When you feel desperately small, when all you need is a hug. Something that comes to you feeling like unconditional love. In a world where it’s not freely given. But you’ll get through. Today you will. It’s true. Maybe because you feel this way at all, it makes you somewhat real or genuine. You wear your flaws on your sleeve. So when others are caught with their pants down, you have the freedom of having not worn any at all. When people try to elevate you, you’re quick to point out you’re small. And somewhat flawed. And maybe that’s endearing, too. Because you’re not out to sell how great you are, you can help another when you’re down. And when you’re up, too. It’s more comfortable down here, anyway, than way up in the air. Birds may have it made. But being on the ground isn’t so bad. Your soul can plant roots. You’ve come so far, and still you feel this way today. Like none of it means a thing. When in fact you’re everything. And you have nothing to prove. You can hide in your room. For days. The sun will find you anyway. You’re not as bad as you fear. You’re loved tremendously. Maybe you say, ‘but if you only knew’. It doesn’t matter. Not here. Where you are. You’re loved and you’re forgiven. Because there’s something hard to put into words. It’s something inside of you. When alone, after you’ve cried, in your heart you will feel it, too. Eventually. You are so dearly loved. You’re safe here. There is nothing strange in love. There is no goal except to love. You. To celebrate your victories. To console you in these times of darkness. It’s a giving thing, that never stops giving. If you only knew what it is you do! If you only knew what it means to receive a look from you. It’s the difference! Between night and day. It’s something you don’t have to do. That’s what makes it so special when it arrives. You can easily choose not to. Like red saffron threads, wisping delicately from a crocus bed. You penetrate where nothing else arrives. These parts of you, these gifts you send, they touch so deep. These ones that travel from your eyes, you find a home in me here. You can wait another day or two or three. You can wait as long as you wish. Nobody touches as you do – when you wish to, and even when you’re not trying. You’ll get through. I promise you. You can give up today, but don’t go all the way! Tomorrow may feel so very different. You’re magic, even if you don’t know it. Even if you feel others don’t see it. You’re here. On your own terms. You’re doing fine. You’re real. You’re not a fraud. You’re caring. It’s all there in your eyes. You are loved tremendously. And unconditionally, for all your light and your dark. Because underneath all of that, you are all love. It takes one to know one. I see it in you. ❤️