thirty-two.

As I turned 32 this year, I have come to the realization that much of my life has been mastering the art of holding space for dissonance; the tension of holding space for joy and sorrow at the same time. Of wonder and lament. Historically I have struggled to reconcile this but I’ve come to realize that as one cannot exist without the other, so does one enrich the other.

Being present in joy and grief is not about spending time with people nursing their wounds or smiling with joy at the things we get to do together, but the stillness in our approaches of the heart, as if to say, I don’t know what to say and do, but I am here, to listen, laugh, smile or cry as our relationship dictates, that you are truly not as alone as we think we are. 

I’ve come to realize that this dissonance has taught me what it means to embrace and wholeheartedly engage with what I have come to accept as the art of loving. For to love is to show up and be in relationship. I have always flinched and run away at that word but perhaps in maturity I have learnt to acknowledge that I am better off with than without. After all humans are such relational creatures. 

I have learnt to embrace the wild in my heart if loving not because I want or have to, but loving because I can and ought to. Love does not require reciprocation to exist (though truthfully it works better that way) it just requires a conscious decision to believe and trust. So we come back to dissonance, and a fear of being unworthy of a specific kind of love, to recognize that true love that exists, exists out of us, and the expectation of perfection. This week I went for a walk after work to get ice cream to celebrate the little wins and mourn the losses. Friends celebrating their first anniversary as a married couple, friends getting into the relationships they’ve always wanted. Friends caught in an ER after an overdose, and friends getting out of abusive relationships that do not serve them.

Life comes in technicolour, and we need to recognize that in order to truly live it.