Forgive me as the words spill out of me like the tears I can’t hold back. The past two days have been filled to the brim with reasons to cry, and I have. A younger me would have judged myself for the blubbering I’ve done over the past months, but forget it.

I am a different person now than I was before. Cells have been recreated, I have been hugged more, loved more, given more, offered more breaths of life to keep living and keep loving.

Why was I given more days to experience so much life, and breath, and beauty, when those not so far from my home, my community were not spared?

They wanted a night on the town– no different from my brothers and sisters right here in beautiful Long Beach. Long Beach, a place in which I have learned to become a better version of myself– my mind, and heart, and soul has been expanded because of this place that I chose on a whim, chasing after a boy.

But I look around me and I see how goddamn lucky I was to have followed that boy that broke my heart and tore me apart to a shell of a human so that I not only could rebuild, but so that I could be so closely connected to these beautiful people around me every single glorious day.

Everything is a gift.

Everyone of you is a gift to me.

Readers, friends, those who I will never meet– the vibrations of you matter more than I could ever comprehend.

 

And then, I am over here, experiencing what it feels like to be congratulated by my loved ones to put one foot in front of the other for three hours.

That’s not hard.

Sweating for pleasure is not hard.

Watching your community break down and cry is hard.

Watching your people argue over the definition of love and equality is hard.

Watching your friends feel pain and anguish over the fact that their neighbors might see them as less than any other human is hard.

Watching your people lose all faith in your country is hard.

Going for a long run is NOT HARD.

It was merely a lesson. A lesson that when we put limitations on what we are capable of doing, we can never change. It was a lesson that dedication and hard work can reap incredible results if you just don’t fucking give up.

We can’t give up on ourselves, and I know for a fact, that my brothers and sisters are so much stronger than I am on my own.

They have proven it to me over and over and over and over again and have given me a reason to run in the first place.

 

And although running is not hard, music is not hard, dance is not hard, and art is not hard — at least not in the way this ridiculous fight is hard,

I will run longer, sing more beautifully, dance with less conviction, and create with as much fucking purpose as I have in my tiny little human form because it’s everything I’ve got.

And if our steps, our struggle, our creation, our breath gives us a reason to celebrate who we are, then GOD DAMNIT we better do it.

Because that’s love.

I don’t care who you are, love is love, and we have the power to choose LOVE over hate and separation every day.

Every day we live is a chance to choose kindness and passion and love.

 

Thank you for inspiring me to run, sing, play, and create.

But more than anything,thank you for inspiring me to love greater than I ever thought possible.