In therapy yesterday, I told my therapist that I was no longer afraid of my future, that I was riding the wave of what it is to be a single woman in this world. That it’s true that I don’t know where life will take me, but that I do know that wherever I land I will make my home. Over the last few months, I have rediscovered a resilience I had forgotten I had. In living a life that was not mine I had forgotten the cloth my soul was cut from and the girl I was went somewhere I could not follow. She’s with me now. She is me and I am her and we are riding this wave together.

It’s not a tidal wave, or a hurricane, or a tsunami I am surfing. It’s a life wave that most of us ride at some point in our lives. I’m not sad anymore. My heart has mended and I know that I was put on this earth to love and to love well. I know my own grace, my own inner goodness, and I know that I loved fully and absolutely even when all hope was gone. I love still.

Today I met a homeless woman my age. Her eyes were my eyes only lost and sad and wandering. How easy it would be to become her. She started to wander into traffic so I called her and she came to me on my island of a street corner. “A mask,” she said, panicked. “I need a mask.” I rummaged in my bag, pulled out a clean one and gave it to her. “Take care of yourself babe,” I said and then blew her a kiss. She blew me a kiss and I walked to the gym. Our kiss broke my heart because in that short interaction where I saw myself where I could have been if not for the grace of God, I also saw my own pain and fear reflected back at me. “Take care of yourself,” I was talking to me. “Babe,” I was talking to me, the blown kiss, I was sending love to me while loving her for being the me that somehow fell into the insanity that I have fought for so long.

Inside the gym I went straight to the bathroom, locked the door and got down on my knees and prayed out loud. I prayed for all the hungry, and the cold, the lost and the forgotten, the insane and the sane because there is only a hair’s width of distance between one and the other. I prayed for my husband and I prayed for my son and lastly, I prayed for me. When I was done my eyes were swollen with crying and I stared at my wrinkled puffy face and saw the girl I was grown into a strong sane woman who loves…loves…loves…without condition.

I am riding this wave and I don’t know where it will take me and I am doing it with compassion and kindness, forgiveness, and love. I invite you all to join me. Let go of your expectations, your preconceptions, your biases and your pain and remember that somewhere in the depths of a city you are cold and raged and begging for a new mask to wear because you are frightened and alone with no mask at all.

Be humbled. Know the I AM. Find comfort on your knees. Love without condition. Be peace to know peace. I love you and I mean it from the bottom of my soul. I honest to God love you.