The Gift

I have been told that I have a way with words and sometimes, like right now, that is a very difficult gift. Some people spend their whole lives walking around with their feelings stuffed down deep inside their chests and no idea what to call them. When I have something swimming around inside me I have a hundred words for that one emotion and it thrashes all around me and right in front of my face. I feel things, keenly, and then I take them out and put them down on paper for others to feel too.

You may not realize it, but you're the one that taught me how to do this. You're the one who taught me how to see myself. Do you remember that time we were in the grocery store and you pointed out something I was doing that you didn’t think was good? No one had ever done that before, and because you saw me and still loved me I knew that I could change.

Few people in life are given a gift like the one I have. And I don’t mean the words. I mean you. I didn’t think I could do it. But you showed me I already did.

Thank you, for showing me my heart, and for being so generous with your own. This is the gift that has shifted the course of my entire life. This is the gift that brought me back from death.

And I know I’m not the only person you’ve given this gift to, and I’m OK with that. In fact, I hope one day I can turn around and give it away myself. I use to think our hearts were something that had to be guarded at all cost. I use to think that I had to chain mine up and put in a box and bury it in the ground and kill anyone who got too close to it. But you showed me that its less like a treasure and more like fish and bread- the more you give it away, the bigger it gets.

So thank you. And I love you. And I’ll meet you on the beach.

Yours forever,
Me.