Disarmed

I’ve never been one to go along easy or take the path of least resistance. I like to fight and grapple with real or self-made obstacles. I’ve spent my whole life building fortresses and sharpening my weapons of mass destruction. If you are one of my friends, you know that I don’t take kindly to criticism of any kind even though I say I welcome “constructive criticism”.  Truth is even when I solicit advice, I narrow the responses I’d like to hear and if you respond outside of what I want then I brush your advice aside like garbage.  I choose from my arsenal of excuses to divert myself from the truth no matter how beneficial it might be. I tell myself things like “they just don’t understand” and “if they were really hearing me they wouldn’t be so judgmental.” Its tiring, all this fighting, and all my defensiveness wears thin on my relationships.

However, recently I’ve engaged in some of the best, open conversation that I’ve experienced in a long time. It comes by way of a gal I’ve only known for a short amount of time but she already feels like a close friend. The best part about her is the way she totally disarms me. Without lacking any honesty she strips me of any reason to be hostile and through the course of conversation I find myself laying down my weapons of defensiveness. I don’t need to make jokes because I feel insecure and I don’t have to hold back the truth for fear of rejection or shame. Sometimes I feel a little naked knowing how much she knows but more often than not the freedom that comes with feeling known outweighs any amount of awkwardness or discomfort. She is teaching me how to love well in relationships and my hope is to love her well in return. 

Letter Pressed Love

I spent a good chunk of time on Saturday afternoon searching for the right thing to say. As I fed the paper through the old machine I ran my fingers over the rusting keys. I briefly pondered the rest of the people that stood here today expressing their sentiments with these iron keys attached to this archaic instrument. Did they send love to significant others, or parents? Did they choose words of their own or romantic poems? Is it real? Is, it ever real? Are our hearts really capable of genuine love?

I think so.

It took me a couple tries to get it just right. I started over twice after missing keys and misspelling important words, but after a couple tries I finally found a good rhythm, a click-click cadence. I matched the not so graceful sound of the keys striking the paper ever so intentionally and I began my note with a poem, one of my favorites. It seems like it expresses what I feel much better than I could ever articulate. …to the depth and breadth and height… No one talks like that anymore but I wish they did. Those words deeply resonate with how I love Him and how I’m learning to love you. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life!

You’ll get the note today, this love on the run. Someone from my favorite little homemade paper shop will deliver it to your desk and you’ll read the words and be moved because you’re the romantic type. You’ll unquestionably like the poem because you know what it means to me but I reckon you’ll like the last line the best.  After I finished typing the poem I only had one line left. One line to sum up how I feel in my own letter pressed love.  Thankful to be yours… Yeah, that’s about right.