Blessing and Ache

"If I write what I feel, it's to reduce the fever of feeling." 

— Fernando Pessoa

I want to take her by the shoulders and whisper to her. "You're the lucky one," I'd tell her. Lucky, because you found the one you love when you were young. And you were together before there were others, so there are no regrets and wasted moments. And you had a kind of secret language between the two of you. And you hold hands. And you ate stale wedding cake on your first anniversary. And he was always faithful. And you were always proud. A picture from your first date makes your heart swell. And you've never questioned it.

And someone else would come to me and tell me that they wish they could be as lucky as I have been. I've had two children, and they are healthy. I haven't been homeless. I haven't broken any bones or faced cancer or lost a best friend in a car accident. I have enough to eat and clothes to keep my body warm and a car that I can drive to the doctor when I have a fever. I have parents that I count among my closest friends and people who pray for me and a Starbucks card with five dollars and forty six cents left on it.

The lucky parts are what keep us going.

It's the unlucky parts of us that hurt.

And I wish it was okay to say those things.

That we ache. That we are blessed.

That the blessings and the ache can both fit inside one beating heart.