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highs and lows.

if love has been criticized for cruelly offering exact lows to match the highs, it’s only because we used the word, “low,” when what we meant to say was, “deep.”

we gain access to our depths as love breaks us open. love’s “lows” push us deeper into ourselves like nothing else can. we are never prettier, safer or in more danger than when we are in love. love puts us in danger of losing ourselves to the other person (which is not great) and the current version of ourselves is about to be obliterated as the connection unlocks an entire series of next versions of ourselves that will walk down the new timeline that just opened.

this is the purpose of love. we must let her in to do the work of pushing us to our highest highs (in connection) and into our deepest depths (which are for us, alone). no one else is meant to come along, though we find our love standing just outside the cave mouth as we emerge. we tell all about our journey and they share from theirs. this is what they mean when they say that we, in love, protect and border one another’s solitude.

when the outside can be made measurably safer and lovelier by the presence of love, we can brave our unknown inner depths and shadows, returning only after healing and releasing what we found trapped there in the dark.