I am for you.

I am all for crying in public. I am for telling your truth, for feeling your pain, for letting it be visible. I am for people understanding what sorrows you carry, and how grief makes it difficult to complete expected tasks. I am for the gift of knowing how sorrow enlivens your ability to be present for others in pain. I am for honesty, to ourselves above all, but also to others. I believe that in being honest with ourselves, we are able to articulate the ways our own hurts fit (or do not fit) into the contours of existing structures of authority and privilege. I believe that expressing our own longings is one way to bring larger needs to the surface. I believe I am not the only person with quiet grief that yearns to be expressed. I am not the only one that finds our broken system of social supports untenable. I am not the only lonely one. I am not the only person to experience loss, and to carry the depth of that loss into my work and daily presence in shared spaces. I am not the only one wanting to feel less alone in a world that insists on blunt individualism. I believe that in being raw, I model not weakness but strength, in knowing and being able to express the ways that our narrowed world has less room for all of us. Because who doesn’t have a secret sorrow they feel the world can not, will not, help them carry? Who doesn’t fear that if they allow vulnerability to show they will be scolded by capitalism’s jockeys? I am all for preparing for the end of the world. But by that, I mean the end of selfishness, the end of endless production, efficiency, assessment. I am for enlarged selves that open into an aching embrace. I am for sorrow and joy intertwined. I am for you as you are, and I am for your voice freed from guilting, unnecessary demands. I am for love in public spaces. I am for you.