to make you feel my love

now i don't know for sure if bob dylan knew what he was doing to my specific soul when he wrote this beautiful song in 1997 but he must have. and i'm not 100% about adele being fully aware that her 2008 cover was going to be one of the most pleasing songs my ears have ever heard but i'm convinced she had some sort of idea. i've been listening to this song for the past 20 minutes on repeat while i've been setting up for breakfast and i've decided that this is going to be a regular thing for me. a meditation of sorts. i don't know why i have to have the idea that god loves me and knows what he's doing with my miniscule, drop-in-the-bucket life, beaten into my head every day but i do. it's just so weird to me the thought of needing reminders of this soul-saving love but he gives them to me on a daily basis regardless of the obvious factor. i mean come on, i have the most bomb-ass family in the world. my friends are ridiculously awesome and inspiring and loving. i'm healthy (generally speaking), i live comfortably (materially speaking), and i have all 10 fingers (missing even one would put a major wrench in my day).  the thing is, i've got it made. and yet i still find something wrong enough with how things are going to desire that constant affirmation that he's right beside me at all times.  and i get it. and i don't even realize that i get it. and i don't get that i don't realize that! i mean today alone, multiple people have contacted me in some way just so tell me that they love me. that they're praying for me. that they miss me. that they're giving me a cyber hug. and i'm upset because only one person has hugged me since i've been here? (which by the way, we're up to 3 after today) they're are people that go their entire lives without hugging 3 people. and i've been here for less than 2 weeks and i'm complaining. i mean come on. that just ain't right.

i've realized that one of the reasons i'm having a hard time with this is because i'm not loving people here that have known me my whole life, or have had earth -shattering conversations with me, or have simply laughed with me. these people don't know me and what i'm all about and what i think about and who i want to be and where i have been. they know me only as the dorky white girl who for some strange reason decided to drop out of school and come to california to live here, in this old victorian house in between the hood and japantown. they know me as the lanky chick that comes down the stairs every morning with thermal socks and a granny sweater with her copy of the alchemist and knitting needles. they know me as the weird lady that dances to herself humming (probably the whitest thing i can think of) as she cleans the dishes. they don't know me the way that those that love me know me. and to be honest, i don't know the person they are to those that love them either. and i think that's what makes it so hard. we are here, trying to love each other, peope that we don't know, people that are hard to love. but that's the most beautiful thing about it though. the fact that i don't even know these women really, but that i lay in bed at night thinking about them. consumed by their pain and their despair. and it blows my mind that in some sick twisted way, i can take their pain and somehow make it my own. like i'm the one that needs prayers answered. i dont. at all. and it's shameful even to think that i think like that sometimes. these people are in survival mode. i'm in "jesus make me love you as much as i possibly can" mode. somehow, survival mode seems a little more pertinent. i want to be able to somehow let these beautiful women know that there is someone out there in the universe that is saying, "i’d go hungry, i’d go black and blue i’d go crawling down the avenue there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do.to make you feel my love." that yeah, they might be homeless, and abused, and drug addicts, but there is someone with them at all of those points and loving them. simply loving them. aching for them, but loving them. even if they don't know it now. because this song in particular was something that helped me to know that. helped me to realize that even at my worst, he loves me. and so that's what's going to have to keep me going. trying to be this song to someone. trying to be that reminder that this isn't the end. they will see the light at the end of the tunnel. i don't know how the hell i'm going to do that but maybe it's as easy as loving.aching.but loving.