Warriors are Worthy...

I hope your Christmas was beautiful. If you are able to take it easy, sit in front of a fireplace and open a book may I suggest Larry Mc Murtry's Lonesome Dove? It is one of my three favorite books of all time.

I love Lonesome Dove. There's someone I know who loves it as much as I do and whenever we are in touch we talk about it. He says he's Gus. I used to get playfully annoyed with him claiming that character because Gus is really God in the book. I used to tell him I'd never marry again unless it was Gus McCrae asking. I asked who I was in the book, he said Lorena which surprised me. I thought I would be Claira; she's a writer and sassy as all get out. I was annoyed by his casting and fueled by tequila asked why I was Lorie. First he said because I was blonde, which ruffled me...Then when whiskey loosened his tongue said it was because Lorie rose above her lot in life. She had been through hell but remained inwardly beautiful and still knew how to love Gus the way he deserved to be loved. 

I'm tough but when I got back to being alone I cried. It's true. I have been to hell and back but remain capable of loving people the way they deserve to be loved. I decided my friend could be Gus...but he is an important touchstone in my life so he needs to roam the earth as the early chapters' Gus.

Warrior is my forever Gus.

I went on to read Streets of Laredo (the sequel to lonesome dove). There's a character, Pea Eye, who ends up married to Lorie and she loves this man after losing Gus. Lorena made a good life with Pea Eye, has his children... The problem is he never feels worthy of her love. 

He loves her so truly and deeply and completely but he feels he cannot accept the fortune he has found in this woman. He thinks it is a mistake she loves him. He cannot simply accept his good fortune. In one chapter Pea Eye has left Lorie behind to bounty hunt a deadly bandit although he didn't truly want to go..I think he left just to escape the happiness so it wasn't taken from him. I'm pretty sure Pea figured if it was his fault he lost Lorie it would hurt less than not being wanted by the woman he wants with all his heart. Thing he doesn't know is Lorie made up her mind to trek after him, which is terribly dangerous in this time for a woman. She sent the kids away and is alone trying to find him again. She has been through the worst of times but she has it in her to endure more...Lorie is bad ass.

Pea Eye said something that made my heart hurt, he said when he looked at his wife, Lorena, she was just so perfect and "complete" it made him feel "partial" next to her. I've never read a more lonely sentence than that. It was the kind of sentence, as a writer, that made me pen a million responses to his character in my mind. 

People are never complete, we are all partial. Because of our "partialness" the connections we make are incredibly important if they are profound and meaningful. As Warriors we should guard those connections and not blow them up because we are scared of goodness. That goodness might stay a short time or a lifetime. Nobody knows for sure...nobody knows the future.

We should strive to be happy. Being happy shouldn't be something to fear. Happiness shouldn't be something we block because one day we might be disappointed. We will all be disappointed. We will all disappoint people too. I have been devastatingly disappointed and been a disappointment. Still, I find happiness every single day. 

I see the unquantifiable value in the belief of fearlessly living and unreservedly loving. It is through sacred connections we understand what is really important, and become our most important and decent selves. It takes immense bravery to believe in ones OWN incompletion and see the magnificence of possibility rather than being sucked into the quicksand of lack.

I believe withholding happiness from oneself is immoral and slow suicide of the soul. I believe fearlessly embracing goodness for the span it exists is the mark of a life well lived. I believe each and every one of us is worth loving...

not partially...

but completely...

Always.

xo❤️,

Dana