I’m learning that the practice of self love is the single most important thing in life and that my life must be devoted to walking that path, eternally. To walk when I am tired. When I am aided. When I feel there is no further to go.

That is to say that the arrival is never further than the step that is being taken. And somehow it’s even closer than that.

Everything beautiful blooms from self love. I always thought the pain was the catalyst. The paradoxical mystery that can both shatter and erase, simultaneously. But maybe I relinquished too much to my agony. I’m starting to believe that it’s not about the pain itself, it’s the response. The relationship with it. The ability to say, “this, too.” The appreciation for the altitudes—as well as the depths, of the path. The love for one’s self.

Did I find the will to love myself in the heart of the abysmal dark night? Can I walk, one foot after the other, blindly, towards whatever lies ahead? Can I love myself for the part of me that does not love myself in any given moment? Everything beautiful blooms from self love. 30 years to even sit with that, and 60 more to remember that it’s okay to forget it.