Dear Beloved: Little Choices

Dear Beloved,

You are much stronger than you know. You know things that you have forgotten that you know. You have gone places where you have forgotten you can go. You are not as alone as you think you are. There are so many things about the real that your mind has gotten twisted, so many ways that your fears have taken hold of you and unseated your intuitions. 

You can trust yourself a little more. You can blame yourself less. Those places you were in the past – there was a reason for your being there and there was a reason for your being there then. But you are not there now. You are here. And there are gifts in this moment of which you are worthy. There is strength for this moment, which you can claim. You deserve to be happy. 

There are many things that flutter beyond your control; there are many things that make you scared; there are many hurts that haunt you. You can’t control the big things – can’t mould them into any shape you like. But you have a choice. You have a power in the littleness of life. And the little choices are often the ones that matter most – they come together into something beautiful and whole, though made up of fragments – like a stained glass window that catches the light in an interesting and unexpected way, and gives you pause. 

You can choose joy. You can choose peace. You can choose to see a certain way – to see the beauty in others, to see the beauty in yourself, to see the good that can be, even if it is not yet. You can see the world with eyes inflected by hope; you can soften hard edges with a gaze that shines on unimportant things, that loves them for their littleness. You always have this power. You always have this gift.