You can repeat, "I am grateful. I am grateful." to yourself like a meditation but if what you're grateful for is hurting you, your "I" will get smaller and smaller. One day, you will be just a vague wisp of gratefulness with barely any person-hood left. 

When you finally stop smothering your heart in drummed up gratitude, the weight of being will likely knock you down and you will wonder if you are strong enough for all of this existence. When the dark corners inside yourself are no longer closed off with fear. When there is no path in your mind that you have not traveled. When all of your emotions sit at the table as equals. When wholeness matters as much as holiness. At that time. In that place. The real work begins. 

It's scary. And it will be made scarier by the fact that people will fear you, fear for you. They will worry about your soul and your sanity. They will miss the person who was just thankful to exist instead of this new person who comes screaming into existence asking for health and wholeness, for boundaries and abundance. They will miss their expectations. They will miss your tranquility. They will miss how they used to understand. You will miss that too. 

There will be grief so great that you cannot imagine edges to it. I don't actually know if there are edges to it yet. But I trust that there are, because I refuse to believe that the only permanent thing is this feeling of loss. 

But the truth is you cannot bring them with you. No matter how much you love them. No matter how much they love you. This is the hardest lesson I've had to learn about my friends and family. I'm someone who used to think that communication and education could solve everything. That ignorance was always overcome by information. That differences could always be reconciled if you explained yourself. But I have spent long enough trying in vain to prove that point. 

You can't make them curious. And you can't answer the questions they're not asking. 

You can't bring them with you. Not on your back and not on your strength of word or will. But if you're on a similar journey, you can walk together. 

I'm reaching a point where I don't have the energy to explain or defend my thoughts and beliefs to folks who aren't curious. Most days, I also don't have the confidence. I'm realizing that explaining and explaining isn't a sustainable mode of living. So I'm looking for folks already on the same journey and for folks invested enough to ask questions and share the burden of vulnerability. But I'm also grieving all of the relationships that didn't turn out how I thought they would. Not just the people I've lost, but also people that I expect to lose. Not just the people who left, but the people who stayed but didn't stay close.