I haven’t always…
I haven’t always…
I haven’t always…
But I am now.
I am now.
I am. now.
No one, and nothing, can prepare you for the pain of safety.
It’s nearly impossible to prepare for something you’ve never known. Never experienced.
I think people tried to warn me, tried to prepare me. But I was too busy and too focused on building the safety I craved. And when I wasn’t building, I was destroying. Tearing down and blowing up what I’d worked so hard to cultivate.
I did that a lot.
I say this not as a judgement to myself, but as a witness. I’m doing that a lot lately. It’s one of the many things accompanying my newfound privilege of safety.
One of the other things is pain.
Pain has burgeoned within me, different from the kind I experienced before it arrived. It’s less acute. Less distressing. More of a quiet hum or a restless buzz. It doesn’t screech at me, or statically grate.
It’s an ache. A chronic one.
Carried for miles and miles. Years and years.
An ache deeply buried, shoved underground beneath the surface of my sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Beneath my sensing. Beneath my knowing.
It’s the pain I had to bury while it was still alive. Can you imagine? To be buried while living is a terrifying horror of this world, necessary or not. And my pain was – and is – very much living.
And I didn’t know that safety meant unearthing. Therefore, I could not prepare for the uprooting.
I didn’t know that safety would create a path for my pain to rise from the depths of its banishment. More so, I didn’t know that it would blossom. I could have never fathomed that my pain was a flower wishing to be witnessed. A flower wishing to be cycled. To grow, bloom, wither, and die. A flower wishing to be seen then composted.
I thought safety would feel utopian. Dreamy. Permantently blissful. I had expectations. My mind concocted circumstances and conditions and qualities as I chased it down. I needed it to look, feel, and have a certain specificity. But in truth, I just wanted it to be specifically certain.
And I believed it was transactional. Raised by capitalism, my brain believed everything must be done transactionally. That I must earn, work, grind, and sacrifice myself to be safe. I’ve been trained to believe that safety is a reward. Not a birthright.
But it is my birthright. It’s yours too. It’s all of ours. It’s not supposed to be a privilege. But it is. Right now, it is.
And I’m not saying that safety is guaranteed. That’s impossible. But I’m saying it is deserved. I am worthy of safety. You are worthy of safety. Everyone is worthy of safety.
(except the horrifically violent, racist, greedy, pedophilic, white supremacist billionaires and the one fucking trillionaire.)
And I need you to know that we are not wrong or broken or faulty for not having safety. That’s a lie. Told to ourselves for survival or told to us by liars.
Either way, a lie.
A lie I’m still working on releasing.
Everyday.
Because it’s part of my ache.
And this ache may never leave me. I may carry it always, even when I feel safe. Even when I feel free.
The lie may never leave. But it will no longer override my truth. Not as much. Not as often. Not as fiercely.
Because I am learning that I can ache and be safe at the same time. I am living with the ache and the safety simultaneously.
I can ache, and be free.
I can ache, and be true.
I can ache. And.
I have the privilege of being safe, and I am not wasting it. I am building safety within myself so that I can help rebuild safety within this world.
And while I do that, I send a prayer to all those who are unsafe right now. In Gaza, Lebanon, Congo, Sudan, Iran, and on Turtle Island. I send a prayer to all those who are building their own safety, and I send a prayer to the ones who have created it, and are deeply aching.
None of you are alone.
I’m here. With you. A million miles away or right beside you.
I’m here, witnessing.
And reminding you:
I haven’t always…
I haven’t always…
I haven’t always…
But I am now.
I am now.
I am. Now.
So.
If you are aching, light a candle and write it in a journal. Tell it to water, speak it to a flame, or bury it in dirt. Tell it to someone you trust, or if it feels right, tell it to me. Comment below. Not as an act of complaint but as an offering of connection.
I’m here.
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