Never Alone
My Beloved, a Gentle Reminder
You are not alone, though I know it feels like it.
That impossible weight the air takes on when you are in a moment of change, of reflection, of overwhelm… as if the air wasn’t meant to be breathed when it is only your lungs, and only your lips that are taking it all in.
The systems that we are surviving in, make breathing seem like a decision, choice a luxury, morals a whimsy…
There is that feeling of shaking, the heart unable to find peace, the thrum uncontained to the space between your rib cage and center mass; as if calm is only able to be achieved when accepting the need to drown first.
The diving an impossible choice, and yet the floating that comes in the space between breathing and acceptance is when all your muscles are able to relax, and you remember what it feels like to trust the water to hold you in a way the land never could.
I wish I could hold you, capture you between my arms, and let the silence say all the things that no words need to express, let touch wash away all of the worries that take up so much space. Give you the comfort of togetherness, and the peace of knowing without speaking, that love that is reflected in being held.
But you aren’t alone, I promise.
These systems are meant to bully us from accepting this reality, leaving us feeling isolated, in an uncompromising space of indecision. As if our knowledge is no longer attached to our wisdom, but rather in our intellect, and as we’ve become an increasingly unintellectual species, this has further compromised our relationship to the feeling of wholeness that used to sit within us.
It takes little to see that we are not alone in the world, with what we feel, what we believe, what we know to be true – and we talk about this, we admit the truth that there is something wrong with how so many people, hundreds of millions, can have such a moral truth that is shared, while the world continues down the path of profound immorality.
We struggle to believe that it matters, that we are not somehow special for what we feel, that we are not standing weak in the face of an indefeatable monster, flailing with all of our might against the tide set to drown us.
But you aren’t alone, if you were, these words wouldn’t be here.
Imagine if you will, that I am where I am, and you are where you are, and yet between us sits more than a 1000 miles, and an understanding that seems impossible and yet no less real.
Yet we are but two of the many. The multitudes. The towers upon towers of those that are in similar situations, tucked in tiny corners, pockets of conversations hidden in the midst of the code that was designed to separate but instead invigorates.
They say The Fullness is the Best of Planners, and I tend to agree.
How did the puppet masters believe that they could create algorithms to keep us siloed and yet here we are.
You are not alone, beloved, you are held so tightly in my hands.
You are not alone, darling, you are in your community, there in your reach.
You are not alone, habibi, you are a gift and you are waiting to be opened.
You are not alone, baby, you are just scared to stop holding on, because you forgot what it feels like to be held.
You forgot to recognize the feeling, the one that is there, you just have to remember to trust it.
You are not alone.
When the snow touches you, it is sent from the water that once rained down upon me.
When the air brushes along your skin, it was the same air that once blew across mine.
When the soil blooms floral in the spring, it will be the same scents of the flowers from which I have smelled.
When moon hangs overhead, it is the same one that I stared at and whispered all my sweet words into, so that it might shine brightly for you.
When the sun raises in the morning, with it I smile, the same I do when I think of you. A ball of light in my core that I never imagined shining so brightly.
The world turns, and yet on it we stand, and on it we lay, and on it we prove,
You are not alone, love, and so… it must be said, neither am I.
We are part of a structure that outdates us, predates us, and moreover, needs us to be real.
We are evidence of something super, something stitious, something potentially… superstitious. (Look how cheesy you make me… how foolish we are in our earnestness.)
We are the outcome of what it means to have hope, the seeds planted long before we knew how to harvest them, we are the fruits of our labor, and the labor of those before us, and we will be in the soil of what is to come.
You are not alone, you are part of something great, something greater, something that is made greater because of you, and with you, and around you.
So breathe, my beloved, you are not alone.
And when you feel like it’s all a bit much, just know, I am carrying the very weight of the world, so that even the gravity might feel less oppressive upon your shoulders. إن شاء الله, Ameen
I loved this message and, as I was reading it, my darling cat jumped into my lap for a cuddle. Between our ancestors and descendants, in our communities and in the world, we're never alone. Thanks for this important reminder.