Be loved. Be Known.

Once again, I find myself lost in words not my own.

"Be loved. Be known. Love people and know people. Be so brave as to raise a hand for help when you need it. Make friends and make sure they know they matter. Be loyal to them and fight for them. Remind them what’s true and invite them to do the same when you forget. If you do some losing or you walk with someone else in their defeat, live with dignity and grace. It is a middle finger to the darkness"

There is something so moving about the things that Jamie Tworkowski writes...they always fill me with a silent ache: I want to squeeze him close and tell him that his words are my truth. There is something so amazing about finding your truth in the thoughts and secrets of another soul. I do not claim to have some cosmic connection to this man (no more so than the connection all humans share) but I feel like he knows me in a way that I can only hope to one day know myself. It is an odd the thing, to feel known by someone you have never met, but I haven't any other way to describe it. Whenever I need to hear/read/feel something (even when I am not consciously aware of needing it), he gives it to me. It sounds like a lot of pressure to put on a complete stranger, but it is exactly what we expect of a best friend. And even if this is only ever a one sided thing, he has saved my life in ways too numerous to recount. He writes that he is "less and less impressed by impressive things or people who are presented as having a lot of answers...". I have been trying to put that feeling into words for so long. The most beautiful people I know, the ones I like to surround myself with, are the ones who are unafraid of being a little messy. I am in love with the people who don't pretend to know all the answers and don't even want to. There is magic in letting yourself find out who you really are and what you really want. Nothing is perfect, least of all life, so why not enjoy the craziness? Why not jump in headfirst and eyes closed? It's okay not to know exactly what you want as long as you never stop looking for it. I am finally realizing that just because I'm not at the same place in life as my "successful" peers doesn't mean I am not exactly where I'm supposed to be.

"In the event we live to be old, i doubt our last days will find us aching for success or achievements. I doubt we’ll ask for bigger names or internet followers or virtual friends. If influence comes then let it come but it was never the point of the story. We will look back and smile at the moments that were real, the people who knew us and the people that we knew, the relationships and conversations, the days we walked together, the story that we told. We will consider the moments when we were allowed to show our beauty and our mess and the miracle moments when we were embraced by people who loved us even at our worst. And they loved us not for any sort of fame but simply because our stories had joined somehow and that miracle of friendship had taken place"

P.S. Listen to "The Immortals" by Kings of Leon. It's from their new album Come Around Sundown, and it echoes the truth in Jamie's blog.