Let me love like the lotus
through the mire and the muck
that weathers the storm
blooming in adversity

Let me love like the lotus
to resurrect and be reborn
in the newness of each moment
without attachment to yesterday or tomorrow

Let me love like the lotus
arms like petals,
outstretched in vulnerability
to love with all of me

Let me love like the lotus
unaffected by the sedimentary nature of life
to withstand centuries of drought
and still carry within me all the properties needed
to grow

Let me love like the lotus with a faith that rises…

Releasing Expectations & Enjoying The Moment After Publication

This is it, I thought to myself. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for!

One of my pieces was selected to be curated and published in one of the top Medium publications. I thought, for sure, this was going to be my moment! I braced myself for an onslaught of notifications, claps, and comments.

Wait for it…Wait for it…

If you’re a writer, then you know this feeling all too well. It’s one that comes naturally as a creative. …

I remember thinking I would never find love. And then when I did, after a while, it began to feel like nothing that I thought love was supposed to be. It was as if once I became his, I was no longer worth wooing. And after twenty years, love became just another word in my vocabulary.

But love is a powerful thing. Given a chance, it’s the fighter who comes back in the final round to show everyone the best is yet to come.

This is my letter to my husband after we almost called it quits. Throughout, I share…

I wish I could count the number of times I’ve been told my husband and I are the perfect couple. And then I wish I could give each of you a snapshot into our life when we are so angry and hurt at one another that we can barely form words, seething at the mouth like two dogs ready to attack.

We have a beautiful story — like something out of a movie or a fairytale, only after twenty years, I quit sharing it because I quit believing it.

Our Story — How it All Began

We met one another on a missionary team based in my…

I am a lover of words.

A writer of love stories, a weaver of dreams.

I read all your favorite books
hoping to find glimpses of you
instead, I found pieces of me — 
in the underlines, in the highlights,
in the pauses between.

Little reminders that I was never really looking
for your love. I mean, I thought I was.

I thought I was going to find some sort of transcendence
in your brilliance until you shut off the lights mid-sentence
and left me in the dark.
Me. Alone. Thinking I needed you.

Until you were no more.

And…

Self-love has never come naturally to me
instead, it was easier for me to take that energy
and reflect it, like a mirror, for you to see.

I didn’t think I needed to see my own beauty
so I made sure you knew just how spectacular
you were or could be, given the right eyes to see.

I didn’t think I needed new things
instead, I gave my everything, to you — for you
going without to make sure you
always had because that’s what lovers & mothers do.

And loving you, completed me until it didn’t… And it fulfilled…

That quote by Liam Neeson is incredible. This piece was beautiful, Vickie! We are so connected. I went through a transition of late where I struggled with the meaning of life. And then I settled on the hope that if this is all there is then I am going to make it the best this that I can. Who knows if there's an afterlife. Who knows what lies, if anything, on the other side. What we can be certain of, is that as you stated so eloquently, we have all we need around us. Love is everywhere!

While listening to Tate McRae’s song, “You Broke Me First”, one cannot help but feel the angst and frustration at the one who broke them first. The haunting melody dares to bring out the enraged lover in all of us who finally found the strength to move on after being broken by the careless actions of another.

Yet, as much as I love this song and as much as I know those lyrics all too well, I can’t help but say thank you to the one who broke me first for they opened me up to a part that I…