2021

 What is real? 

 

In the Velveteen Rabbit it is described as follows:

“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit (https://bit.ly/3bc2iIq)

To me, real is to be loved like you are.  Without pretence, without lies.  It is true love for yourself.  I believe you can only be REALLY loved if you are honest with yourself and others, vulnerable enough to show your deep, and brave enough to share your deep.

We can love each other real only when it is based on truth.

Real to me, is showing my shadow, because I know I am not the only one.  It is sharing my fears, dreams, joys, laughter, and tears without holding back. 

Only when you are real can you love to your full capacity.  That is my mainstream:  LOVE.

This year I want to become real to myself.

That means writing; this blog and other stuff to air my innermost being and serve some motivation to others.  It means singing sad songs and happy songs.  I mean really singing.  It has been too long.  It means allowing my kids to love me in my wisdom and in my vulnerable moments where I don’t know the answers.  It means loving my wife to bits, even when the bits are sometimes hard to chew because we are forming each other, with each other, because of each other and despite each other.  It means growing through joy and pain.  It means honouring my memories and actively creating memories worth to hold. It means not shying away from bad memories, because it made me real, if I allow it to.

Here’s to a REAL life.