Like a Fool

A while back, a woman wrote to me asking me to talk her out of being a fool. She'd met a guy and for whatever reason there was a spark. Lightning even. She said that she knew better than to believe that it could go anywhere. 

This women had spent years squelching her faith, trying not to believe in the silly fiction called love.

Because believing just hurt too much.

She thought it'd be easier to just brush it off, set her jaw and lift her chin above it all. That it'd be easier for her to carry on in her stoic march, to close her eyes and hope that these pesky feelings would just fall away on their own.

She had wounds -- scars really -- too many to count. This woman who tried not to hope. This woman who thought she was too old, too tired, too damaged to be loved. This woman who thought that it if she had any shred of dignity or intelligence left in her, she wouldn't let herself go down this rabbit hole.

This is my reply to her and to all the other women out there trying not to be fools for love:

For fuck's sake, I hope that you're a fool. I hope that you believe in every lightning and unicorn myth. I hope that you believe that something good might happen to you one day... just because. And especially not because you suffered for so long, and not because it's your turn, and not because you've given up hope. But just to believe that there is magic in this world and sometimes it just happens to fall on you.

And then I hope you allow yourself to feel the full white-hot glory of this excitement and giddiness. I hope you allow yourself to feel like you're fifteen again. I hope that the fifteen-year-old in you wakes up that that old flame and reminds you that you're not dead yet.

And that you might just be a fine piece of ass.

And then throw your hair back and laugh at the sky. And look God right in the face and say, "It's about fucking time, buddy."

And then expect all the good things to happen and see what life feels like for just a minute when you allow yourself to believe that life might be just as miraculous as you'd always hoped.

And that you are the miracle that someone else has hoped for too.