tenderness

When we face our fears, we see the truth.

When we see the truth, we will often suffer.

When we suffer, we’re given a choice.

We can shut down and avoid it

or we can touch that tenderness and truly feel it.

When we feel it, it feels like a test.

A test to be conquered, to be overcome

so we can make it back to security, to stable ground.

But that stable place is an illusion – it doesn’t exist.

There is no destination where suffering has been extinguished,

no place where things are solved.

Things fall apart and then come back together.

And then they do it again, and again.

And that tenderness, that feeling of groundlessness and instability,

that is how we know we’re on the verge of something.

That is where we grow.

That is where we heal.

That is home.