Love is worth it. Even if it breaks your heart. Anything that makes more space inside is worth the risk.
I was reading journalist Laurie Penny this morning. She spent the night at a friend’s apartment because of a bomb threat. Not a bomb threat to her building, but to herself, personally. I watched last night on Twitter as this went down. Many people want to shut her up. All the time. She writes of her need to keep writing, even in the midst of the exhaustion of constant bullying.
I would posit this: writing, for her, is like love. She needs it. It fills her. It feeds her and is part of her. What she writes is also larger than her, and that is important too. What she writes is a message sent out into the world. And the consequences of writing, it seems, can sometimes break her heart.
Love is – or can be – in everything we do. Love is with us in the midst of the onslaught of misogyny and hatred. Love is with us in the midst of racism, injustice, and murder. Love is with us if we let it. Love is what helps us to keep choosing our lives.
When you feel worn out, or pummeled, or sad, or angry, or not heard, I hope that you remember to keep choosing for the sake of love. When you feel inspired, or filled up, or well seen, or joyous, I hope that you remember to keep choosing for the sake of love.
When we choose for love (not pats on the head, not cookies, not gold stars) we are strengthened for a future we can’t know. When we choose for love, we can choose rightly, even if we turn out to be “wrong”. When we choose for love, the choice is always worth the risk. We learn something. We open. We are connected. We are changed.
We can kindle hope when all else fails us, for we have chosen for love’s sake, and for our own. And what we do then, we are choosing for the world.