‘You’ is one of my favourite Gideon Heugh poems.
It reminds me that I am more than enough.
Even in the face of heartbreak, failure or defeat, yes, even there, we are enough.
And if this is true – which I fundamentally believe – then we don’t need to adopt a character to play our full part in our own story:
When we run from struggle, we are never free.
+ Brené Brown, excerpt from Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted, in Rising Strong
So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye.
We will not be characters in our stories.
Not villains, not victims, not even heroes.
We are the authors of our lives.
We write our own daring endings.
So today, take a look in the mirror and choose to love what you see.
YOU
You are a wild and gleeful thing,
nudged by lavish grace
towards all the astonishments,
and nothing can stop it
or you.You are not a mistake.
The earth aches for your singular life,
for the miracle radiance
of purely, specifically
you.The shakings and the dark noises
+ Gideon Heugh, in Devastating Beauty, 2018
of a man-made world
cannot compete with your hallelujah blood,
your hosanna spirit,
or with the gentle fury of hope.