Perhaps love
In its most basic, genuine expression
Is simply two hearts
Friends
Family
Strangers
Showing each other our broken bits

Heart fatigue.

Is that a thing?

Exhausted from feeling all the feelings.

Wishing for more support.

More love.

More understanding.

Less judgment.

I haven’t felt safe for a while now.

I’m not referring to my physical safety — I don’t fear for my personal safety in any way. I have a roof over my head, I feel perfectly safe in my home, in my small town, and going for a walk around the park in my neighborhood.

But unfortunately, my physical safety is where any safeness I feel ends.

As many stories do, this one starts with a cute guy.

But this story isn’t actually about the cute guy. It’s about the sport he is passionate about and introduced me to.

The sport that did what little else could — it calmed the overwhelming anxiety I started experiencing about six months into the pandemic. Anxiety that I have never experienced before in my life and that has kept me isolated and — as I like to joke — almost feral.

Golf soothed that anxiety…and my soul.

Sunday mornings are for coffee and daydreams.
The kind that have me wondering about slow love.
Knowing glances over our steaming mugs,
Me baking scones for you, and you feeding me a bite of your bacon…

I wonder what you will look like,
Although that’s never mattered much to me.
I care so much more about what your soul feels like,
And how connected we are…beyond the day-to-day activities.

I awake feeling something I cannot name,
Something that feels unusual in my soul.
Until it comes to me softly,
And whispers its name to my heart…Wistful.

A long, quiet Sunday stretches out before me,
An empty day that is mine to create.
And while there is peace in my home,
There is none in my heart.

“Sometimes when you are quiet, it feels loud to me,” my friend messaged.

That comment from a week or two ago has stuck with me.

Even though I still haven’t responded to the message.

Even in my ongoing silence.

A silence not meant to keep others out, but to protect what is left within.

To guard the little that remains.

Keeping myself safe because it no longer feels safe anywhere.