Anami Grace | Made Up Life

You know, Anami Grace. Loving you cost us everything. And it was the most worthwhile investment of our life, worth every tear, every heartbreak, every moment of holding your pain with you. It was the most incredible journey to hold all of the sad songs you knew and transform them into an entirely happy life.

I was on my way home from grocery shopping for my next cooking show, and I’d met a fellow sojourner on this path of transformation. A nurse named Rachel. She told me about when she’d turned 40 she was in a relationship she couldn’t stand, and she let go of the control of her life and allowed it to unfold. My ears perked up, and I listened intently to what she had to say because I knew that the universe had conspired this moment into existence. I’d kept forgetting things and having to go back through the store, the last item being a Mexican coke for Carnitas next week.

I’d gotten out of line for that coke, and ended up in line just in front of her. She said something about waiting in line, and I told her my journey through many waits bringing me to the truth that I can wait impatiently or I can wait patiently, it doesn’t change the wait – only me. Not as a judgement against those who cannot wait patiently, but as an invitation to see how it’s an opportunity to know yourself better.

Lines memorized by my heart through the ache of waiting for my babies through adoption.

I mean, there was some cPTSD in there too, but it was always when I was able to let go of my own control and let things work out under the surface that I found the freedom in waiting for their arrival.

And no surprise that I’m still learning that lesson differently 20 years later.

We talked about my old job and how I’d taken that leap of faith into my healing journey, and how I’m still learning that some things have to be left up to God to work out better than I could imagine.

So, I was reflecting on that aligned conversation as I realized that all of this journey has been an invitation for me to understand that I’ve always been worth the cost of everything to hold my own love.

I’d sought it out in outside relationships, but the entire universe of me was waiting with bated breath for me to realize that I was the priceless treasure I’ve been looking for the whole time.

I couldn’t breathe between sobs as it all connected for me. I learned to love the entire universe of who I am through the depth of my own underworld. For the hell of the difficult experience holds treasure that heaven cannot comprehend, for it is not about the destination, but the journey of you. For it is in the darkness where the light has the most power.

I made a new playlist of dance music – dance 13 and it was right about then that “Can’t Forget About You” by Ross Quinn came on. And as the music swirled around my being, through the sobs, and around the roundabout to the safety of my home, I was struck by how many sad songs I had to know in order to understand this complete love.

A secret between the universe and I. For I can never unknow the cost of the effort, and all the ways I had to prove my love to myself. To earn my trust. And to hold all of the shadows of harm, and the joy of tenderly caring for each hard part about myself.

I used to wear the idea that I was a fool for love with such great pride, but now I have to hold the sadness that I was the last one to hold the treasure of the love of who I am.

But I’m glad it was exactly this hard to love myself. Because each new neuropathway was a battle that cannot ever be expressed in language, a cost, a love language that only the collective Anami Grace will ever know.

I thought about the loss of my best friend. And my throat tightened with the familiar grief of the loss of her. I considered that I bravely “graduated” from therapy when I lost my insurance because I couldn’t stand the misery of my old job anymore. I traced the loss of my last romantic relationship like it was a vein on my skin, holding the pain and knowing myself through it. All of the old stories that told me that the songs were always sad.

I then looked at my green eyes in the mirror – traced with the redness from my tears. I wiped away my tears and paused to look at how this year has forever changed my face. How many times I’ve broken into a smile because I found a new glass ceiling of joy right behind the pain of what I was holding.

How many times I had to let a version of me die because she couldn’t bring us to the next level of where we needed to be. And it somehow made me more beautiful.

Through richer, through poorer, through sickness, through health. I am the inescapable treasure of the alchemization of all of this pain.

And, the worthwhile journey to hold all of this love inside of me, for me, by me, and on purpose. Feels like letting go of the idea that I could control anything over and over again.

In the end life is truly only about allowing all seasons to visit you, to come to you, and knowing that they’re all simply opportunities for you to know and love yourself through each one through the underworld of the harm this world gives in spades.

So, loving myself cost me everything. Loving every iteration that made me who I am, loving all of the old faces, patterns, relationships. And knowing that I love myself more both because of, and in spite of each one of them.

Anyway. Love and light to you all. Take care! Bye.