Blackberry Bushes

Last night my roommate dropped me into a blackberry bush.  I’m not sure if you know this or not but blackberry bushes are FULL of thorns.  Now normally if I trusted you to hold me up and not drop me into the abyss of thorns and you didn’t I would be extremely upset at you.  However, last night there was not a hint of anger in me as my three roommates excavated me out of the thorn gully.  My lack of anger wasn’t due to the fact that I was laughing too hard to try to ignore the pain of my cut up and bloodied right side.  No those laughs were real, they weren’t concealing anything.  You see the reason that I wasn’t mad last night like I normally would be was because I had chosen to love these girls.  Before I even moved in with them I had chosen to let them into my heart and life and have a yes for them even when I didn’t feel like it.  I had chosen in my heart to love them through thick and thin which meant that even when times got tough I wouldn’t chose to pull away but instead to continue to be fully present.  Which meant that I had to go through a lot more pain this summer because my heart was fully open to them, fully open to be loved and embraced and to laugh with them but also fully open to be hurt or ignored or to feel neglected.  

You see I made a decision a long time ago to turn off my heart.  To not let feelings in anymore which ultimately meant that I didn’t really let people in anymore either.  It meant that I never felt that happy or thrilled or alive but it also meant that I never had to feel much pain. I learned to stay up, to not let anyone or anything knock me down, the cost to that was not letting people in fully though.  But this summer I decided I was done with that.  I decided I wanted to be fully alive and to feel again and so I found some of the most loving, caring, trustworthy people I knew and decided to move in with them and decided to leave my heart open.  I decided to commit to them and to not run away and I must say that it has been far from easy.  I must say that many more tears have been shed this summer than have in over a year but I also must say that I’ve felt more alive this summer than I have in quite some time.  

So you see, having three roommates laugh beside me as they pick thorns out of me, wipe my blood off, and try to get me out of the ditch and not having even a tinge of anger was success for me.  It proved to me that I had fully chosen them this summer and loved them and hence a great memory of us all together was far more valuable to me than the pain of the scratches.  And even more than that I learned both in reality and metaphorically that when I fall they won’t just leave me there, that the right people won’t just watch me suffer, but that they’ll run to my side, help me out, and tend to my wounds because they love me.  I learned that I can trust people and open up my heart fully.