Your emotions are not wrong or bad
or lying to you or telling the full truth.
They are giving you a bit of data
that you shouldn’t ignore.
We love, and lose, and fall, and get back up,
and fail, and try again.
Your humanity is not an affront.
We are reminding ourselves that
this is who we are, how we’re made:
to feel the pain, the grief, the stress,
the risk, the fear, the heartbreak.
So, you beautiful creature,
here is your permission slip to feel it all.
To feel the joy and delight and excitement.
And the sorrow and fear and despair.
All the yellows and pinks, and violets and grays.
Because you are the whole damn sky.
— Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have, p. 4-5
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, January 18, 2024