We create space for things that matter. A favorite picture to hang on the wall or place on the desk. A new book that needs a place to live on the shelf. A new pair of shoes. That’s why people turn home offices into nurseries for their new baby. That’s why we save seats for friends at the movie theater or have place cards at a dinner table — so that everyone has their own place.

I wish words could adequately convey what it meant that night they said, “Emilee, I have a candle for you and we’ve saved you seat with us. When you’re finished, come sit with us.”
I can’t.
I’ve tried, but I can’t. I even told them “thank you for saving a space for me” — more than once — because what that small action did to my soul was indescribable. To them, it was nothing. In fact, the response to my gratitude was, “Emilee! Of course! We adore you!
I’m not sure why the negative narrative in my head plays so loudly. And, it doesn’t always. But sometimes, it’s just hard for me to believe the voices that say, “Emilee! We adore you!”. I know I’m not the only one whose internal dialogue is often in conflict with reality. I think we all feel that way, to some degree, if we’re being honest with ourselves. I think the key is getting ourselves to understand what is true, even if the narrative we tell ourselves is so loud that it drowns out all else.

For a long time, I listened to the narrative. I heard the cacophony of “You’re too loud. You’re too annoying. You’re too whatever else that is obnoxious or ridiculous and makes people not like you”. I heard it so much that I began to live like it was true.  I’m a loud laugher. Like, head back, loud guffaw laugh. Until recently (ok, like 2 years ago), I stopped laughing like that. I felt like what other people thought of my laugh was more important than laughing as loudly as I wanted. It seems a silly thing, now, to not laugh like I really wanted to because of other people. And maybe it is, but it was true. And it was indicative of a much larger problem of listening to the narrative that screamed above all else “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON’T LET ANYONE SEE THE REAL YOU. IT IS WEIRD AND NO ONE TALKS IN MOVIE QUOTES ALL DAY AND WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES?” The narrative that says, “You do not belong.”

For a long time, the narrative — external and internal — I heard was that whoever I was or whatever I  enjoyed or found funny (which, is basically everything) wasn’t “right”. Whatever that means. It wasn’t right enough to be liked for who I was or loved fully just because I existed. When I first experienced a love that was so unconditional and so free, I didn’t believe it. I doubted it because I had never in my life felt it before. I railed against it and fought it like a toddler fights sleep when he is the sleepiest. I sat in my deepest need of love and belonging and couldn’t accept it when it was staring me right in the face. I was so unaware of my deep, deep need for a love that just WAS that I didn’t even know I had it.
That was years ago. . .and I almost lost it.

The years since have been fraught with a deep reckoning of the narrative I hear and the narrative that is true. Almost always, the narrative that is true rings the clearest, but sometimes, moments like Christmas Eve are like an unexpected hug. A good hug, too. Not one of those side hug, back pat hugs. But a full on hug, that is tight but not too tight. A hug that says, “You belong here”. It’s a hug full of a love that goes before you and alongside you that whispers the truth patiently until you believe it.

It is unearned love–the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there. — Anne Lamott  

Peace be the journey.