Dear Heart and Love

***First DRAFT**

Dear Heart - I'm sorry you're so exhausted; that you've poured out so deeply only to be turned away at the door of all the places you've knocked on. All the letters you've mailed sent back to sender, damaged and beyond and reading when returned.

Dear Heart, I'm sorry. You've been a pack mule loaded with saddle bags of tears and fears and pain, with a few scattered flasks of water, only to be left on an outcropping with no way around the steep fall that is on every side of you.

Dear Love - I'm sorry I tried to experience you deeply in the heart of someone else, only to be left with stones in in my stomach in place of a meal and bricks that were used to shatter windows instead of generating an unbreakable foundation.

Dear Love, I'm sorry. I tried to learn every way to give you away to those who didn't even know they needed you only to be misunderstood and thrown away; wasted. 

Dear Love, I'm sorry. I'm so fatigued and I'm not sure there's a place for you anymore in the great outpourings - that endless well flowing freely is now nearly dry and I have to apologize to my Heart for burning the well pump out long before it should have; it's gears ground smooth and useless.

Dear Heart - I'm sorry you had to listen to everyone else's pain while you were breaking; having to stay silent because weakness wasn't allowed. We do heal ourselves by healing others, but sometimes there are still gaping holes we alone cannot fix no matter how hard we try.

Dear Love - I'm sorry so many wrote off your depths because it's only the shipwrecks left behind that get admired once the storms are gone and the crystal clear waters are so still you can see everything that lies beneath the surface. Broken, destroyed legacies and structures given more respect and honor than the intact, properly working vessel.

Dear Love, Dear Heart - Please forgive me. Your worth is so much more than what you were paid for your efforts. But, sometimes the only one who knows the cost appreciates the true value of an item. I'm just sorry so few have ever agreed with the appraisal, which was still very often, too low.

©Kristen Garcia 04-2021

A rare moment of doubt

 I was left alone with my thoughts the other night. I know, scary.

With as many thoughts, ponderings, and evaluations that my mind processes at one time, it's an interesting situation to see what journey it will take me on. But for more than a quick moment, doubt crept in.

It chewed at me, something I normally don't entertain, let alone give space in my head. As someone who's run alone for most of my life, I know that one seed of doubt left to take even the smallest root can wreck havoc on any forward progress when you have to be your own greatest motivator.

But I gave it a moment to develop because sometimes, you have to look at doubt as not a moment of weakness, but a moment of internal vulnerability that can present a path of growth, if its fruit is used correctly.

And I doubted whether or not I was still too poured out and broken to love deeply again.

As I sorted through old reminders of love I have given away, a familiar ache grew, as did the doubt. Pain I thought long gone still somehow churning. A wall to guard a still sore soul I could feel being fortified again around my lingering pain. 

Like grief that never quite heals, but just evolves, that cycle of retracting the bridge to my heart once again commencing - without a way to stop it in that moment. It's not a pretty place I like to go, as much as I do retreat into myself.

To love others in such a way it's a little bit terrifying to them to be loved deeply, purely, without asking anything of them... it's a very vulnerable way to live. Rejection and misunderstanding come often - people in their pain can run at the first sign of sincere kindness. 

Only a few brave souls embrace it. Even fewer recognize it's a natural setting for a few of us walking the Earth and it's the only way we know how to be to the vast majority of the world around us. We have to find a means to output our love or we go insane.

An old adage says - we heal ourselves by offering that healing to others. It is very true. But when you live in that manner, it's scary sometimes to realize how much pain we still try to heal that lies within ourselves when we look at the outpouring we give to others. Especially in the moments when we recognize the pain we have carried before within the beings of those around us we care about.

And we begin to wonder if we really ever healed, or just kept ourselves busy enough to forget the pain, trying to be love and force for good in someone else's life that we never had in ours. 

Trying to be the love we needed and never had to those around us, hoping somehow it will heal ourselves in that process is really an interesting world.

Can those two concepts really co-exist in a positive synergy within the same soul's spirit? Or, do they work against each other, canceling one another out, creating a perpetual cycle that can't be conquered but forever powered internally by their offsetting dynamics?

The doubt flared hard. The coolness in my heart that would not normally be there, a reflection of how many questions and memories were trying to be processed as the moments progressed.

I've loved deeply, only to have those offerings snatched and cruelly, intentionally, forcefully crushed. So many times, by so many people who held key roles at various times, that I genuinely wondered if I had it in me one more time to try and love deeply in that way again. Let alone try and see if there was a capacity to love even deeper than before.

And in that moment of being alone with my thoughts, I had a realization for the shortest second, that I couldn't genuinely, immediately say that I did. 

There's little that really scares me - nay frightens me - and that realization did. 

When a lover gets tired, drained, exhausted, wonders sincerely if they're too hurt to love deeply to another soul on various levels again, the world mourns.... and the doubter has a choice to make. 

 To retreat and disappear, or evaluate, identify, and be brave enough to push past the doubt.

What happens to a dream (love) deferred......  dreams (love) crushed.... love continually rejected?

It's what you do with the fruit of the doubt that defines who you are.

Somehow, at the end of it all, I know I will find a way - or better yet - life will find its own curious way to refill me - so that the depth of outpouring can continue - and run deeper than before.

Somehow.

 

©Kristen Garcia 08-2020

Trust - Part 1

(Part 1)

Trust. It is earned. Sometimes freely given until required to be revoked, but once it has been damaged...... only the few strong bonds of love can mend it.

Continually strengthened trust is the evidence of investment. One of the dividends that is paid when effort is exerted and maintained and continually present between souls.

And yet, it is fragile. It can take an unintentional act to shatter it.

Loyalty goes hand in hand with trust - and both of those are cultivated, to say, in the soil of the entirety of a being.

But the thing with soil is that it can start strong..... but those in agriculture know, you plan corn in nitrogen rich soil for too many years straight, and the crops will waste away for lack of nutrients in the soil. It's why every few years (we hope) fields that were filled with stalks soon find the low bushy masses of legumes growing in them - refilling the soil with the needed nitrogen naturally.

It is the same for us. What can start off strong in our lives can quickly become co-dependencies - everything from relationships that are full of drama and tear our souls apart, even though we love them dearly; to our jobs; to our civic and volunteer duties that were of good use - over time we can slip into routines that go from healthy to killing us slowly.

And we won't realize it until the aspects of trust in our lives start failing.

Maybe we stop trusting the employees around us that are on our team because we need the added work to keep us from having to deal with the parts of our lives we quietly slip away and if we just go from day to day not knowing what week it is, we never have to come full stop and deal with the reality of how far we've sunk - until we're having a good solid fugly crying metldown at a stoplight on the way home, hoping no one next to us sees us.

Maybe we start second guessing ourselves - decisions we once made without a second thought now become arduous and nearly paralyzing because we aren't sure if the next step is the one we need to make.

Maybe we stop putting ourselves near our closest friends because they'll ask how we are, and look us straight in the eyes - and deep into our souls - and know we aren't ok and refuse to take a bullshit answer when we look away and say we're 'fine', because we're on the brink of breaking and we're too afraid to let them know that. We're not the ones that break. We're the ones holding the broken. The tables cannot be turned for us.

That good soil creates the environment for everything in our lives to thrive, and when it's sucked dry, so goes everything else. Including that bond of trust with ourselves and others.

If we cannot trust ourselves, all other bonds are damaged. Like green peppers in a dish, it taints everything around it, and you can't kill the flavor's saturation, no matter how much you try (even in Thai food's spices).

Trust is the basis for friendship. For partnership. For business. For accelerating and promotion in all areas of life.

If we do not address the environment we've created for ourselves, we will never restock the soil of our lives that have been depleted. And we will always have damaged trust aspects in our lives. And the resulting crops yielded in our lives will be weak, damaged, failing, without nutrition to the body - on any level.

And that, will prevent us from being the greatest assets for ourselves and others. We will miss out on the greatness life has to offer us. Because the beauty that is found on the two-way street of trust is not one to miss.

Be real. Full stop and heal as needed. Reality check our selves so we can find ways to shift and be better - for ourselves and others.

Should not our goal in life to be trusted by those we care for? Should we not look to be the safe place to incubate their dreams?

Part 2 to follow......

©Kristen Garcia 01-2020

Trust - Part 2

(Part 2)

Should not our goal in life to be trusted by those we care for? Should we not look to be the safe place to incubate their dreams?

........

Yesterday, in the midst of a pretty continually busy day at work, my mind wandered back to my Endless Night in Chicago after seeing Hamilton just shy of a year ago.

I remember sitting at the hotel bar, waiting for one of my dearly beloveds to make it downtown (he got caught up in things and wasn't able to make it) so we could catch up from not seeing physically each other in about 2 years.

While sitting there, a conversation was struck up with Doug, a nice married man on a business trip, who used to gallivant around downtown during his college days. He was older than me by a tick, at least that's what it looked like.

Conversations turned to our families, work-life balance (WTF is that?!), and the need for continual evaluation of dreams, goals, and current placement in life.

Somehow, in the course of the couple hours of chatting (before we went on a what, 5 hour wild ride around downtown shutting down places) we got on the topic of retirement/next step dreams, and I opened up a bit on the different key ones I have had for many years.

Dreams that perhaps only one other person, who is not in my life the same way anymore, ever knew details of. But I found that I could trust a stranger at a bar I had just met over those who had been around me for years.

And between moving more projects in places between California and Pennsylvania into production I chewed on that memory and it's ramifications....... what would it take for someone close to me to earn my trust enough I would open up that much?

And I'm honestly not sure. Perhaps someone you'll never see again, someone who has the most unbiased knowledge of you, someone who you never know may have the financial backing - or connections that do - to make those dreams real is a more secure place to open up for a moment than friends who have known us for years.

What would it take? Still today, I don't have an answer from my side of that equation.

But in the process of realizing that..... it's always healthy to turn the mirror on ourselves and ask - what am I doing to be THAT safe place for someone else?

From the soil we cultivate our lives from, what kind of roots run up from that soil? What kind of strength do the structures that are built up from that ground - whether it be vegetation or edifices, take your pick for what illustration works best for you - truly have to sustain those who you want to find shelter there?

Trust is so vital - and so fragile. And the level that is required to be allowed to be given that kind of access into one's life should not be taken lightly, as it is a rare treasure.

But, should we not all strive to be that sanctuary for the deepest dreams of those we care for and love, even though they may never choose to engage in the courage it takes to open up that much to us?

We are responsible for creating and sustaining the soil and structures to provide that shelter for their dreams. It's on them to open up.

But how can those around us trust us if we are not our own greatest cheerleaders? If we are not speaking life into our own spirits, souls, minds, hearts - we can surely never speak it truly into those around us.

If we doubt in such a way it precludes us from moving forward; if we have paralyzing fear in the simplest of engagements and pressures, how can we ever stand next to someone else and keep telling them they will be OK no matter what happens - that just trying to do what they are doing is the great act of courage and something positive will always come from it.

If we self-prophecy failure before we even try, in the early stages of an endeavor - and not to figure out how to mitigate the issues before they arise (whole different how could/would this fail kind of mentality, don't get it twisted) - and not only that, but we vocalize it and release it on the Earth to be manifested - how can we ever be successful in our own life, showing us to be an asset to those around us?

I was on the phone one day with the head of our sector of architecture for a firm we have a long history with - a firm that I worked very hard for the last handful of years to restore a very solid working relationship with after several tried to burn the bridge with them - and what I said kind of shocked him.

I explained how I looked at projects - and that in one way it was my name and character on the line every time we were awarded a project. And I wasn't going to let that be damaged.

But not only that, every project I touch and execute is a direct reflection on the directors above me - the ones that spent 85% of their days on the road for years working to build our company from all of 4 people nearly 25 years ago to many times that size. If I fuck something up big time, not only is my name and character damaged, but so are theirs, and 20+ years of trust and sleepless nights away from their families.

However, I also realize, that we are entrusted in the same way every time this architect director gives us projects. His - as well as his entire team's - reputation is on the line. The months or years they have spent working with their end user clients to develop the trust and confidence in them to see the job done right - all of that is also at stake.

And it's not a responsibility I take lightly - but it is one I understand to more than just my personal level that is at stake every time I get that call that we have another project headed our way.

He was without many words when I said that - other than to ask how I could be cloned a few times and those clones sent to his office :)

But that's the kind of trust I have learned that I need to operate at with those around me. And I have to maintain myself in order to maintain that with them.

Not only that...... it HAS to be mixed with sincerity. This director knew I was as sincere and honest about making sure things went right for the fragile balance of trust is at stake every time as I could have been.

The responsibility of getting myself to a point where I can be trusted with great things is something I have consciously worked hard for - because I would want to be the person I would trust with my greatest things.

But even I still struggle with trusting others. As much as I've worked on myself to be that person, I still have my doubts in others.

Until then - The strength of the words I speak to myself; the resilience of my spirit I stand in when the world is crumbling apart around me; the accepting of great words of love and encouragement I unexpectedly receive; the full stops of life I have to take to evaluate and rebuild in a healed way pains from deep wounds of the past; the sincerity passed on to those around me of how deeply I do care for them ------

All of that is sown and tilled into the soil of my being, so the structures of trust and love and sanctuary made available to those around me can be as strong and unbreakable as possible.

Because at the end of the day, I may not yet trust anyone normally around me enough to share my dreams with, but by God I will be the one person they know beyond the shadow of a doubt that will provide a foundation of trust and loyalty and tough love to endure whatever process they need to go through and encouraging words and a never ending optimism to see their deepest dreams become reality. 

May we all desire to be that trusted. May we all work on ourselves enough that we get there.

©Kristen Garcia 01-2020

Trust - Part 3

(Part 3)

I wasn't planning a third part, but somehow these thoughts didn't get out between the posts last night..... and when you wake up with the words swirling around in your soul to where you can't easily get back to sleep....... you have to get them out.

What makes our dreams so precious that we guard them with our lives, intentionally forget about them, allow them to become our obsession, and let them be our driving force at various moments each day?

Our dreams are our deepest, most vulnerable, items that belong solely to us.

Our children do not. Our lovers and partners do not, nor do our friends. They all have their independence and ultimately, their own destinies they have to create.

But our dreams and goals are solely ours to create, develop, and execute. Granted, we can build dreams together with others - both friends, business associates, and lovers/partners - but there are those that are just singularly ours, even if they involve others to achieve.

They are reflections of our character, of who we are at the end of the day when no one is watching - because these dreams were built in our solitude, our long nights of not sleeping, the hopes and plans generated when we sat alone and pieced back together the shattered parts of our lives so that we could motivate ourselves to go one more hour, by hour, on our worst days.

They are our deepest aches - which reflect our most tender vulnerabilities - and exposing those to many is not something we are comfortable doing. It takes bravery to place those deepest, most personal things, inside the hands and minds of another human - for rejection and mishandling of those words and concepts is one of the deepest hurts we can inflict on someone we love.

Unhealed people cut those around them that have done nothing to deserve it - and when we unintentionally (or worse, fully understanding how we are defeating their spirits) take scalpels to those we love, and their trusted moments of sharing those vulnerable spaces that hold their dreams - we continue the cycle of pain and damage and extend it past ourselves to those we say we care about.

The world does enough each day to smack us around, beat us down and drain us of the energy needed to keep dreaming. We should not be adding to that destructive cycle.

Some of us had years of such disappointment that we stopped dreaming entirely. The dreams we had mustered up in our youth, buried deep in the shadows of our memory - far enough away that we could struggle to ever find them again because being numb was far safer than dreaming and never being able to move it forward because of our current situations.

Locked away and cold for years, it took someone speaking life into us - someone that had healed themselves over their episodes of hurt and pain and shattering - to revive those memories and spark the flame of passionate drive to accomplish them again.

That is why we turn the mirror to ourselves and ensure that we are not still cutting others unintentionally. How can we say we are friends when we chide another's character by rejecting their dreams?

They can be absolutely menial to us - perhaps they are simple - like having a dessert from some famous restaurant (or chocolate dipped bacon from a high end chocolate maker) - or a bit more grand - they've never experienced the ocean or some place that raises magic and excitement in their soul. And yes, as menial and simple as they are, they mean something deep to the heart that exposed that desire.

Those are simple ones to fix. Thank God we live in modern technology..... overnight shipping for some dessert.... coming right up!

You want to go see the ocean?! I got plenty of airline and hotel points. $59 each way cattle call sale - I got your plane ticket and hotel room if you get the rest.......

And then there are those who are starting their own businesses, terrified that they could lose their entire financial stability if this dream fails, because they walked away from the stable, secure, option of employment to make this a reality.

There are those becoming foster parents that have no idea just how much their hearts will be enlarged and cracked with each new child that comes into their lives.

There are those who dream of working in a field that has a clock ticking against them due to hiring restrictions and they can't seem to find a job that pays enough to cover schooling and life and allow them to train at the same time so they don't miss the age cutoff for the field.

The amount of trust it takes for someone to open up about the smallest dreams should never be taken for granted. It can take as much effort for a heart that has never had the chance to heal between shatterings to open up about the little things as it does for a healed heart to open up about the grandest of dreams.

The question is - have we created a life for ourselves that becomes the sanctuary for these most vulnerable moments? The little ones and the big ones?

Not only that, but how have we set ourselves up to not only nourish and feed the ones in our own lives - so we know how to support those who were brave enough to let us in slightly on their own roads of development?

Yes, our own dreams are measurements of our character and our raw selves - but so is the way we handle and nourish the dreams of those around us, who have been so courageous to expose them to the light of love they feel radiating from us.

We can all do better, there's never a limit to that aspect of our lives. It's a matter of how badly do we want to be that person to those we love?

©Kristen Garcia 01-2020

Power of Giving Rest to a Soul

I did my semi-regular trek into downtown Chicago for a theater show last night. I was able to bump my ticket around for this show and also catch the pre-show backstory/history discussion by the dramaturg and scanned the room to see who all was there.

All adult ages, surprisingly, were in attendance, even though it was a lightly attended event.

It was a great show, and I had about 25 minutes to hike a few blocks to the train station to catch the next to last train back out. I got out to the street and one of the older gentlemen that had been in the pre-show discussion started hiking pretty fast with me.

We struck up conversation after figuring out we were both on the way to the station and he was a pleasant man, probably 70 years old or so, but pretty spry as he was keeping up with me in shoes that didn't want to stay on my feet as it got colder that day.

We hop on the train together and I invite him to sit with me and we talk about life and how things shift as we get older and how what used to be a simple, not horribly busy life has become crazy with work and family demands.

Wisdom from those who lived a generation before is a beautiful thing to engage with.

I lay out the crazy weekend ahead and all the sudden he stops the conversation and goes - you should really get a nap in, you have a drive home once you get to the station (about a 45 minute drive), I could keep talking the entire ride back and you really should take a nap.....

I was going to rebut that because the conversation was going very well and he was cool, but, I had nearly fallen asleep toward the end of the show a couple times (not because it wasn't great, my body just said..... NOPE) and I had packed my contact solution in the car in case I did fall asleep and need to get them out to be able to drive home. So I pull out the ticket so I could hold onto it for the conductor and start getting my hood fixed up as a pillow.

This kind soul told me to give him my ticket so I wouldn't be woken up and he would make sure the conductor punched it. He promised to wake me up before his stop, which was two quick stops before my station.

I handed the ticket over, and fixed my hood, and tried to rest.

The next thing I know he is waking me up as promised. I swear it was a 10 minute gap, but, it was over an hour I was out. He hands me back my ticket and said he had taken care of the fare for me (he had some kind of laminated card that looked nearly as old as he was, was worn and barely legible as his pass, so maybe he was a retiree with some kind of free fare for life.... or so I'm hoping....). He said my ticket was still good until January of next year and that I should save it so I can get back to town again and relax from the stress a bit sooner than I normally do.

I thanked him as he was standing up to leave the train car and head to the parking lot at his stop.

I never did get his name.

But I can tell you the power of being given permission to rest while someone watches over you to make sure the key things are handled will be his 'name' and memory to me.

We all struggle to give ourselves rest. But to receive, and accept, the permission of someone - friend or stranger - to rest, with an ease because you can tell they care enough to be trusted in that acceptance, is even more rare.

There is power, and great humility in that offer - and in that acceptance. A power so deep perhaps we forget how much that can mean to someone who has no sanctuary to let their guard down and for a moment or two, to take off some armor and shift mental focus from fixing and completing, to resting and restoring.

Sometimes, the small miracle of love is for us, we just have to be willing to be open to it, and trust in it.

New adventures every trip, it seems.



©Kristen Garcia 11-2019

Carry On, Lover of Souls

Just over a month into the new year.........I'm still seeing the hearts around me post of power building in their souls, their businesses, their lives. It has not been a fleeting desire, thankfully.

Love. Love greater than before. Listen between the lines deeper than times past. See those around you in ways they have never seen themselves before.

It is a tragedy in this day to be a mediocre lover of souls. Pain is real. The risks people are taking are higher than before. People are, for some reason in this day, more willing to dive in to things they've never tried than before.

Be the cheerleader someone has never had, or had lately. Be as passionate about their success as they are at achieving their goals and dreams.

Watch them close enough to read between the lines, to see the fears they don't want to admit exists - or mention in passing - and speak life into them there. Silence the voices that keep holding them back or want to cut them into pieces - many times it originates in their own doubts and one person believing in them can refresh their dreams and passions.

See who they forget they are to be, and remind them those dreams and desires they have for themselves still exists and will emerge.

Be the one they know beyond all others will be there when needed.

When life kicks them down offer a hand up.

When they forget who they are, restore their vision.

When no one else believes in their crazy dreams, be the one that does, and keeps them focused on their end goals.

But this comes at a price. You have to be your own greatest cheerleader and driving force to be able to give this to others. You give this only from the place you are rock-solid and unshakable in yourself.

And to do that, you have to block all the negative out. You have to keep your circle tight enough that when no one has your back, when no one sees what you see in yourself - you continue to drive yourself forward, never looking back.

It comes with a life in isolation - where a few souls will pass through and be an edifier and a passionate partner in crime for a while - but many times those are seasons that are short and end and another cycle of being alone is called for.

But understanding the value in the isolation makes you better at being the bolder lover of souls. You know the pain of walking alone. You know the weight it is to be the lead driver in your own success - with no celebrations of the milestones you achieve to be seen.

Although it becomes a normal for you, to celebrate others when they thought no one knew there was something to celebrate can be a humbling experience that goes farther to let someone know they are loved than little else can.

But, you quietly carry on, knowing that the passion's fire can keep you going for years - so long as you don't have voices around you trying to derail you.

It is a tragedy to not share that love with others. What may be like the largest marching band sound to them in the way you love them can be kept silent away from the world. Nearly every time it is better that way. But to the receiving soul, you do not love quietly. And that is the miracle.

Be the miracle in the lives around you. Words, time, energy, money, any combination of them - be the miracle to those around you.

They may have no idea how to read you. They may look at you strangely for a while. But to a heart that has felt security in status quo, in the way others see them and love them in a passive way, it will bristle. Great manipulators work hearts that way, too. You cannot fault them for that caution.

But carry on being misunderstood. Carry on being a miracle of bold love to those around you because this kind of friendship expects nothing in return - which is equally mind-bending to many. Carry on when all you can give us a hug or a word.

Carry on, always. Your sincerity will eventually be proven true.

Carry on, great lover of souls. Carry on.

©Kristen Garcia 01-2020