I’m not sure why you clicked here. Maybe you’re just curious, and you’re having a lovely day already, or maybe, like most of us, you’re in pain, and you need that reminder that someone out there cares about you. Maybe you’re in so much pain that you’re thinking about hurting yourself, or finally letting go of that faith, or maybe even, like me, you’ve dabbled with thoughts of suicide.
Or maybe you’re fine. Because you know you’re loved.
“But wait, who?” you ask. “By whom? Who am I loved by?”
That, my dear new friend, is the question we all exist to answer. You see, by clicking here, you have entered a fairytale…a fairytale starring you.
Before we step into the thick of the plot–you do have lovers that you might have missed, you know: that person you don’t even know exists who can’t get up the courage to tell you he or she pines for you, or your pet dog, or that family member you don’t think about often enough, or your new friend who awaits you in the future, just crouching at the other end of a span of time, ready to show you their love–have no doubt, you, you right there, you are loved. I would like to earn the right to say that I love you, but not in a weird way, just that, you see, as I become more and more like my true self, I discover more and more that there is no one I cannot love. “I love you all!” I will cry, and I will make you scores and scores of beautiful things, to fill your days with smiles!
I am not that person yet. Every now and then I still meet an @$$hole I can’t love. But for now, dear stranger, I do think I’ve earned the right to say I do love you a tiny bit, because I can just imagine you there, hunched over with your eyes reflecting in the computer screen like moonlight over a pond, and just thinking about you reading this makes me happy! We are two people reaching out and touching each other over energy beams as ideas from my brain percolate in yours–we are, in some small, utterly weird technologically-infused way, linking souls.
How cool is that. How cool are you, to me! A soul-linker!
But my dear soul-linker, imagine for a tiny pretend moment, that Someone Else out there loves you far, far more? What if there are love-letters in the breeze stroking against your face; in the colors, or lack of colors, the shades of blacks and whites and greys laid soft against your eyes; in that feeling of satisfaction you get after a solid meal, or after guiltless sex; in the rush of dopamine after your success, and in the touch of a hand upon your shoulder in the moment of your darkest defeat. Imagine someone hiding behind the scenes of every good thing, striving and planning to give you the desires of your heart–not the fruits of the desires, necessarily, but the desires themselves, rich and full and bursting within your chest–!
Oof, oh boy, I hope I haven’t said too much. Do you have time, soul-linker, for a little story? Of course you do. No, I’m not talking about all those big stories, up there, all those professional things I write–just a little story, about you! Of course, you must come along if it’s about you. Otherwise, who will I have as a protagonist? The whole story’s ruined without a protagonist. It’s all ruined if you don’t come along. I’m glad you understand. I must warn you, of course…
…it’s a love story.