10:31pm July 10, 2014

I love you.

I love those of you who have shown me that there are other ways to exist in this world, beyond the ones that I am used to. And that these other ways of existing have their own strengths, their own weaknesses, their own dignity in the combination thereof. I love that you are exactly who you are, and that you show it so well sometimes, even though you’re not trying. Especially when you’re not trying. I love watching you being you.

I love those of you who have come up and told me that my writing has helped them in some way. Sometimes in ways I could never have predicted. People whose names I don’t even recognize, who are willing to buy me yarn because I had an effect on them and that is beautiful. I would buy you yarn too. All of you. There was a time when I had nobody, no writing to turn to, nothing that could show me who I was. And when I encountered for the first time, writing that could even point me in the right direction, even if it wasn’t perfect, it was a turning point in my entire life. And I resolved that I would do my best to be that turning point for other people, as my way of giving back something to the world. So I love everyone who has found that turning point either in my writing, or in someone else’s writing, whether or not they end up agreeing with me in the end isn’t important. What’s important is that we have connected as human beings.

And I love you, all of you, because love is connection as human beings. And connection as human beings means compassion, and it means doing things for each other even when it’s hard, and it means love, and helping each other out, and doing tiny tiny little things, and huge huge big things, all at once.

Sometimes the smallest things are the largest. I still always remember the people who are too afraid to start a tumblr themselves. The people who start a tumblr and want to ‘like’ people’s posts but are too paralyzed by anxiety to actually do it. But even their intention to ‘like’ people’s posts is an act of love, and I love them for it. I’ve been there myself. Never tell someone that their inability to participate fully is because they don’t care.

I love all of you so much you can’t imagine it. Having had community ripped from me at a time when I needed it more than ever… to have these tiny bits of community among tumblrites means the world to me.

I love you because you are you. I love you because each and every one of you is uniquely you in a way that nothing can take away. Many of us have survived attempts to assassinate our identities. Many of us are surviving such attempts on a daily basis. But we have survived, and we go on, because we have to, because we care, and most of all because we love. I love those of you I get along with and those of you that I don’t always get along with. I love those of you I agree with and those of you that I don’t always agree with. Those things aren’t so important in the face of love.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. And I mean every word. I love that I’ve found this tiny cluster of people from all walks of life who somehow manage to connect with each other on a regular basis despite all kinds of internal and external barriers to connection. If any of you died, if any of you got pulled off the Internet involuntarily, I would mourn. Because I love you. I really do. In the deepest sense of the word. Love is. Love is. Love is.

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