"'Being willing to sit with another person in their pain is something we Americans seem to fear. This type of intimacy requires a lot of our "self"; it requires that we not hold another person at arm's length, but walk side by side through life.'"
It's so much easier to live life at arm's length, isn't it? We don't want to get involved and don't want things to get too messy. But then one day, you wake up and wonder why it feels as though you haven't lived life or why you're all alone. It's hard to take the risk to share - not only in another's pain, but sharing our own pain with another. And yet as hard as that is, I have found that there is no other place I'd rather be. There is nothing easy about it; but there is also nothing as rewarding. Your heart breaks and heals - all at the very same time. It requires truth. . .trust. . .and time (all qualities in short supply today). Some days you want to run the other way as fast as you can; other days, the pain is your only comfort in life and you cling to it as if it were the very thing keeping you alive. If I'm honest, it's probably the thing that scares me out of my mind, while being the thing I long for the most.
I've heard a lot of movie quotes lately and I want to share one from my VERY FAVORITE movie (of all time - check it out if you haven't seen it yet) Martian Child:
"But right now, you and me here, put together entirely from Adam, sitting on this round rock with a core of liquid iron, held down by this force that so troubles you called gravity, all the while spinning around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour and whizzing through the Milky Way at 600,000 miles an hour in a universe that very well may be chasing its' own tail at the speed of light, and, amidst all this frantic activity, fully cognizant of our own imminent demise, which is a very pretty way of saying we all know we're going to die, we reach out to one another. Sometimes for the sake of vanity, sometime for reasons you're not old enough to understand yet, but a lot of time we just reach out and expect nothing in return."
I don't want to live at arm's length - I want to reach out instead.
That may be your most moving post yet LaDawn. All I can say is you're an amazing person LaDawn and I am so glad I can call you my friend..and for those of you who have not seen Martian Child.. watch it!! A wonderful movie!!
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