Monday 14 April 2014

i was there...

I've been so tired lately of people who are completely and utterly on the outside of my relationship, looking in and trying to give my partner and I their two cents about why it is so wrong that we are together. So, here's an inside story, here's what our relationship really looks like and this is why nobody ever has the right to intellectualise love.

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There's a beautiful, clever, wonderful girl who walks this earth. Who, when I met her, was beaten and battered by the tribulations of the world. She was shy and quiet but the moment I saw her I could see so many other layers, waiting to be stripped off to show underneath her exterior there was a vulnerability. Yet, even deeper still there was a fiery, adventurous and tenacious spirit.

I was there when she began to face up to a trauma she had experienced years earlier. I was there when she started to peel back the layers, exposing her inner self as we investigated her past to bring the hidden darkness to light.

I was there when she was consumed with depression. I was the one who helped her accept her illness and helped her to seek the support she needed.

I was there when she started having panic attacks, when she was caught off guard on so many moments, locked away, struggling to breathe. I was the only one who she would unlock that door for, because I was the only one who had started to unlock the layers of her.

I was the one who knew about those times she cut her skin. I was the one who kissed her wounds better, who told her that no cut could run as deep as my love for her.

I was there when she shut off from the world. I became her world, as did she mine, and together we re-entered reality and found our paths back to life and back to God.

I was there when she found herself without a penny to her name, reassuring her that it would all work out. I would have given her every cent I owned if I could have.

I was there all those nights she cried until her eyes ran dry. All her tears were wiped away by my hands. All those sobs at 3am were heard only by me. I was the one who comforted her with safe arms.

I was there when she took flight. When she ran away from all the hurt and pain, I ran with her because as long as I was there she would never be alone.

I was there when she questioned, questioned what she was here to do, questioned her very worth and even the point of staying alive. I was there to help her find answers, to find a level of satisfaction in this world, to guide her out of the darkness.

I was there when she started to shed the layers. When she found her voice, her strength, and her self. I watched her grow. I watched her learn. I watched her blossom to become not only somebody loved by the world but someone who knew how to love herself.

I was there through every illness, through all the anxiety, confusion and sadness. I was there when she had to do some of the things which terrified her more than death can terrify me or you or anyone.

I was there time and time again. I have been there so many times, listening to her heartbeat, hearing her breathe. I have been there as she has lived the past six years. I have been real, present and relentless.

When I met her, she was a girl of silence and now she has a song. The most beautiful song which I see play as she smiles, dances, sleeps and lives. Her song is so beautiful because it is the song of a life that is full, satisfied. A life that has seen pain and has risen from darkness. A song that has as many layers as her soul and a melody as beautiful as she is.

Can you hear her song? Does it play when you hear her voice, when you imagine her face? When you speak her name?

I fear you cannot hear it. You hear her name, you see her face and you hear a song. The song played in movies when the villain enters the room. Your own song, a fanfare, drowning out her own rhythms. Or even silence. Because you know her as that girl she once was, the girl with all her layers on, the girl with a song that can only be heard by those who were there. I was there.

Because I was there, and because I love her, unconditionally, unchangeably, incomprehensibly, my own song fits perfectly with hers. My heart sings my song even louder when inflamed with the passion she draws out of me and my song joins with hers in perfect melody. You weren't there. You sing your song so loudly in the vain hope her melody will fit to yours. But without being there, without a love that goes beyond the judgement of her exterior layer, you are simply a repetitive drone and your song and hers are like clashing symbols.

I will always be there. I will hear every sob from her mouth, wipe tears from her eyes, kiss her every cut. And I will hold her hand until the very end.

Our songs will never stop playing in harmony together. Before drowning her out with empty noise, why don't you try to hear her song? Start being there, start listening, start peeling back the layers. This is love, when two souls meet. This is reality, when your understanding is not excluded by your 2D vision of a girl who once was but is no more. This is salvation, when your song is listened to by a God who could listen all day to the beauty you exude. A God who wants to hear the hurt and love in your song. A God who sings in harmony with you. This is life. This is how we live life, how we survive, how we reach our potential. By being there. By listening. By going deeper into a person's soul. By understanding their hurts, by collecting their tears, by guiding them with gentle hands.

God was there, I was there, she was there. We all hear her song and we all know how to love her right. We know who she really is and we will always be there to keep her song in tune and her heart beautiful.

But you were not there.