v. the camp counselor

writing the title of this chunk and my fingers are already trembling.

it’s no secret to any of you that fear and i are old friends. maybe old companions. old partners. coworkers. peers.

now that i think about it, it’s probably the relationship that has, throughout my life, always been the strongest. i’ve put in a lot of effort, no doubt. my fear knows me. it is comfortable. i am used to him, he comes to me when i’m lonely, he distracts me, he embraces me when i need him to. when i interact with him, he responds, always. fear just wants to protect me. he gives me advice, stay away, run away, you don’t deserve this, you’re better than them and so often i listen to him. can you blame me? he’s loud, and it’s easy to convince myself that he’s right.

most ironically, it’s not scary for me to sit with my fear. it’s scary to let it go.

wow. i think those few sentences may have just changed the course of history.

maybe i should be angry with you because you got in between me and fear. how ridiculous! my oldest friend, my greatest ally, you told me to push him, of all things, out and to the curb.

what a novel idea.

there is one thing i definitely don’t like about fear. he may love me, maybe. but he’s not loving to me, i don’t feel loved by him, and nothing else really matters. that’s why i’ve decided, with whatever this newfound wisdom is and wherever its come from, to cut him out.

but when i met you he was my only friend. he was possessive of my soul, he was determined to push out everyone else because nobody could love me like fear could.

i believed that then.

my feet in trickling snow melt, the sky open wide above by bowed head, my chest quaking with the gravity of sorrow. my hands were twiddling a shard of a stone. i still have the stone, the one you put love into, and i keep in it a small black felt bag, hidden, so fear can’t convince me to part with it.

fear and i are still old pals, but i’ve learned to focus on my other relationships, thanks to you.

but back to my feet in the snowmelt, back to my butt in the mountain meadow, back to the rock in my hands.

you took the rock and you held it in front of my face so i couldn’t miss it.

that year we did a trust fall exercise. our task was, as we fell, to scream the thing we feared was true about ourselves,

“MEAN!”

i yelled, though i didn’t yell it, i whispered it, it was barely audible, so deafened by my shame. you asked me to repeat it, and were surprised by what you found.

the truth? fear and i were coworkers, you’ll remember. together we built large, thick, suffocating black walls to protect a heart that the world had told both of us, for our entire existence, was not worth loving.

you shattered those walls with a single rock, as if they were made of glass.

what’s the old saying?

this rock was split in half. it was jagged, it was ugly, it was incomplete, it was missing so much of itself

but you told me something that was fundamentally true but so fundamentally earth-shattering

you said that the rock was still there.

that no matter how many cracks existed on its surface, no matter how many harsh edges formed on its once smooth surface, no matter how many of its pieces worked their way apart from the whole, that stone remained. there would always be something left.

you even suggested,

this one is crazy

that all the edges and ridges and divets are what made the stone beautiful.

yes, the edges were dangerous. perhaps they were hideous, to some people, who believe that the world is seamless (how naive)

but think about this. the edges interrupt the flow of the river, they make the water swirl and catch and interact with it in interesting ways. they are places for our fingers to rub, to experience something more than a smooth surface because that’s nothing if not boring. they make the rock more purposeful, because it can still be a paperweight and do all the normal, rock-typical things, but it can dig holes in the earth. it can scratch names into trees, it can be discussed, it can be

loved over.

thank you for being the first person to prove to me that my history, my shameful, dark, painful history, made me more lovable.

thank you for proving to me that my existence is a miracle.

thank you for showing me that my ability to laugh and smile and play and love was a miracle.

thank you for being my first miracle.

every bit of love that is in my life exists because of you. i miss you emily, deeply. i miss you because you were (and always will be) my first soulmate. i miss you because you are the real miracle. i miss you because you hold me, you comfort me, you smooth me with just a glance.

i think the entire world would be better off if everyone knew you. you are magic. you do bless the lives of every single human you touch. thank you for teaching love, thank you for being my single greatest example of the right way to live.

and something about thea?

she is also, a miracle. you already know this. you’re told it all the time. and i’m sure her magic, sometimes, gets drowned out by dirty diapers and screaming.

or maybe it doesn’t. no, i’m sure it doesn’t, not for you. i am sure because you are the most loving person i have ever known. i am sure because i know that you, somehow, know how to naturally, effortlessly, forgive and love people unconditionally.

what i wouldn’t give to have you as my mother.

well, i would have said that once. but i know now, my history has made me better. it’s made me me.

and thanks to you,

thanks only to you

i know that is someone worth being.

i love you.