I wrote this a couple of weeks ago:

Things are never the way you expect them to be. Nothing looks the way you painted it in your mind. In my picture of Beirut, I didn’t imagine a Syrian refugee next to an American Eagle next to a Lebanese restaurant next to a grocery store that sells Kroger brand peanut butter and Labneh. I didn’t expect taxis to be louder than bombs. This isn’t a place you fall in love with, this is a place you give your mind to. You let the city run through the grooves of your brain and you overthink it. There may or may not be answers here, but there are definitely pathways. So grab the handles of you bicycle and pick a road. Maybe you’ll end up somewhere new, or maybe the road is a circle back to where you started, but don’t let your busy mind build any walls. Your hands are your own. Let them search and don’t be scared of what they find. But know it won’t be what you expect. Love will come, but it won’t come easily.

 

“You can bury your past in the garden by the tulips

water it till it is so alive it lets you go,

and you belong to yourself again.

When you belong to yourself again

remember forgiveness is not a tidy grave.

It is a ready loyal knight kneeling before your royal heart.

Call in your royal heart.

Tell it bravery can never be measured by a lack of fear.

It takes guts to tremble.

It takes so much tremble to love.”

-A Gibson