Anyone who has been following my work long enough knows that I also draw, or try to. It was my first medium of expression. The first tool I had to share emotions that couldn’t be formulated into words. The first outlet for the intensity I deal with daily.
I have had the great fortune of meeting M.
We’ve known of each other for a great many years, but only recently connected. M has changed me so much in such a short amount of time. They inspire me to think more positively in a way that feels practical and real. Not just some far off concept like positive affirmation or mantra—but to step into the counter moment of my intense emotions. It feels like they are saying, “but turn around, did you see what’s over there?” And gently they’ll take me by the shoulders and turn me about to face the obvious that was right behind me. Behind the me that gets stuck looking at things negatively, one dimensionally. They help reframe and tamp down the one sided intensity without correcting the me that it’s infused with, they simply redirect it.
I’ve never known such gentleness or kindness. Such patience and care. Being around them literally lowers my stress metrics in my wellness app—they teach me to be more. But not because I am not enough, but because there is more to me than I have previously allowed myself to think, they unravel that side of me with gentle challenges of my long held beliefs and repeated inner narratives.
Whenever I try to express how I feel about them, the words always come out as gratitude, but those are not quite the right words, in fact I think they need to invent a new word for M: to carry the weight, the feeling of someone who helps you heal and feel seen and loved without anything in return. It feels like parenting, it feels unconditional, it feels immeasurable and extensive, this feeling allows for redundancy and repetition, length of time be damned, it allows for getting it wrong but without anger or frustration, this feeling flows with all things, mixed together, welcoming and not wanting. It feels complete and never ending like being chosen in contentment, for always.
I have been given a gift, in our friendship. One I do not want to take for granted, but one that makes me feel afraid of wounding them, with who and how I can be, so I am made to do better from love, for them.
Here are the words they sent to me, here they helped me untangle the mess of ties holding me from this form of creativity for over a year, it’s not my best drawing, but it’s a start at “simply using my hands rather than not.”
Thank you, my dear M for saving me once again.