Up Until Now

(One of) my therapists (it takes a village, don’t judge) uses the phrase “up until now’’ when referring to life and all its mysteries. When I complain about things, she kindly offers, ‘’up until now they have been…’’ and I have to smile now, even as I write this.
 
With those few words, there is so much roooooom. I love this perspective and up until now, have been pretty crappy at it.
 
I’m a fixed sign. Fixed on the ways I see things. Fixed in the ways I do things. Which can be very grounding and very constricting too. Cage like.
 
This evening I experienced a shift after spending time with new friends. Re-learning how I can’t really know people till I open up my heart to them. And that I never know how it’s going to go. Thankfully, this night, I am resting with a lighter heart and a calm mind.
 
Naturally, this leads me to wonder on the etymology of the word vulnerability… Turns out it stems from the Latin vulnerabilis – to wound. Wow. Really? Yes, to wound.
 
How immensely beautiful, how insanely crazy, how foolishly simple! To be vulnerable makes us open to wounding. Man! Doesn’t that make you want to love people more? Doesn’t that make you love you more? It does me. I literally just felt a shift in my heart. In making myself vulnerable, I open myself to wounding. I also open myself to loving.
 
And so I choose love.