Just relax the voice inside my head barks.

 I am relaxed, I snap back.

I mean, I’m trying. It’s harder than you think, I whine to myself.

I held my breath, standing on the brink of something.

Shut out of something.

Stumbling in the dark, I scraped against a crack in the wall, saw a narrow band of light streaming through.

Oh, it’s here, my insides screamed.

Then beating sobbing fighting pushing pulling and punching my way out with a splintering crash.

I am breathing hard and am somewhat bloodied.

Now what? I ask the open air with fists still clenched.

I‘m here, he said.

What if I disappoint you? I wondered to myself, but only nodded as he gently unfolded my fingers.

A lucky thing to not have missed love when it arrived. To hold the beating heart in my open hand and stroke it’s soft down. It’s quite another to expose the untended corners of my own heart, to stop trying to figure out who and how to be and just be.

Can I let you in, all the way in, where the sour bits desiccate, the dark heart places that have never seen light?  Can I let you accept my failures?

Can I let you love me anyway?

He said one time, he said if it doesn’t work out in the end, it’s been wonderful.

And my heart sank, because my head pounded with the need for a guarantee, but it turns out that’s not what love is. Love is not a contract or a deadline or an ultimatum or a deal or even a safety net. And then my heart rose because he loved me enough to not lie.

As it turns out, love is a whisper in the night, a how was your day?, a pat on the hip that means something more and listening without waiting for a turn. Love is making the effort, wanting to. Love is always turning toward.

And the ravishing.

It’s all here.

So, relax.  Just relax.