The Space Between - Love

This month’s theme is The Space Between - Celebrating Pride. Each week we will highlight a different quality that not only is relevant to the LGBTQIA+ community, but is embodied in our collective experience. This week we are celebrating LOVE. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community the experience and expression of LOVE has been a complicated one. What became evident to me as I contemplated this idea of the space between, is the chosen family that has surrounded, enveloped, and gently held my sometimes fragile heart. When the space between myself and love seemed so far away, these amazing individuals have placed themselves in the space between. They have served as a strong and steady bridge, connecting my own heart to the amazing reality of love. This is not romance novel love or the dreamy tale of star crossed lovers, but instead this is a sturdy and steadfast love. It is a driving to doctors appointments, fixing a meal, answering a midnight tearful call, wenching your car out of a ditch, encouraging text for no reason, simple presence in the midst of pain kind of love. That is what it means to stand in the space between. When the space between heartache and healing seems so far away, love and those who carry it stand arm and arm to bridge the divide. So this month we celebrate love in all its many forms. We celebrate the sheer transformational force of it…and our utter need for it. We celebrate those who have sacrificed and paved the way so that just a little more love can seep into our collective experience. For those who have steadfastly held that space between.