How to take

I'm used to giving, I never know how to take. If I'm given something freely, I push it away - and offer my own limb instead. Here, you take it, cause I don't know how to receive yours. I will keep pushing it away until the giver gets frustrated and withdraws the offer. I'm happy, on the outside, on the inside, I cringe and watch the present trail off into the distance, craving it badly. Punishing myself out of habit. Continuing the blueprint of a victim. Crying silently over what I could have had. Closing off to feeling happy and walking off into a quiet depression. I realized I have shut myself down to the point where I am not enjoying simple things anymore, or have forgotten how to do it. How to take what others are giving me, without feeling guilty, how to hold the hand out when asked and not run away when I feel the weight of something precious, how not to drop it and break it into a million pieces. How to feel worth it.

How to take. How to not shrink at gentle words, or look up when all I want is to hide and look down, look away, hide under the bed and proclaim my fake ignorance. How to receive gracefully, to unroll and relax, to feel soaked with sun rays and be warm and lazy. How to nod in agreement when offered something good, how to feel the goodness and not be afraid to spill it - how to cherish every drop but to balance it with one hand, playfully. How to smile at anyone, anything, and never be afraid I won't have enough of it from others. How to allow myself to feel, to connect, to open up and to not be afraid to attach, to grab, to hold on, then to let go, to know I can fall and not break because I will be caught, because I will know how to take, how to allow those hands to catch me. How to be able to receive not little, but a lot, to know I will have space for all of it, to know I can, to forget the reasoning, the logic, the past experiences. 

Something that I never held - scares me. Something that I maybe held once in my life and something that slipped out of my hands, like a silvery fish - I'm afraid to lose it again. I choose not to touch it at all, to not regret losing it later, but I want it badly, and I keep staring. Something that I took the first time because I was naive, because I didn't know, because I simply opened up and received. Something that I don't know how to hold because I forgot I actually can, because I don't trust my hands anymore. I stretch them out and look at them, and I see they are shaking. Something that has no weight, that can float off into the distance at my first breath, something that can't be put into a box, wrapped in crinkly paper, tied with a ribbon, sprinkled with perfume and housed in a gift bag. Something that can't be bought, can't be traded, can't be asked for or demanded, by stomping one's feet or hitting with fists on the table. Something we all crave but seem to somehow not notice when we have it right under our noses. Something that is so fragile and yet can stand for centuries, un-shuttered, un-broken, un-touched. Love.

How to take love? How to be big enough to hold all of it and be small enough to swim in it? How to allow it to seep in from all sides and spill out from top to the bottom, how to throw myself into it, soak it in, drink it and gobble it up, how to gorge on it and not be afraid to overdose? How to stop the battle of "even" and "equal" and "the same amount" and simply get it, without thinking of having to give something back. How to un-train from constant deprivation and for once be on the receiving end, because it's simply beautiful. For no reason. For being happy. For feeling full of it. For feeling giddy. For jumping up and down like a three year old, because there is no fear of never having it again. How to get back to that time when nothing mattered except for the immediate feelings - and everything that was given was received, without a second thought. How to be able to do it all? It's simple, really. Love back.

Photo by Nicki Varkevisser.