a cold truth

It’s a few weeks ago and it’s brick as fuck outside as I walk down Dundas Street to meet up with Bria. The only reason my fingers are warm is because I’ve got them shoved deep in the pockets of my $1600 down-filled Mackage coat. I justified this purchase on the basis of beauty and truth - I need a beautiful coat because otherwise it is true that I might die from the cold and all the ugliness of this world. 

This was the gist of the speech I gave to my boyfriend when he asked me how much I spent on it.

“Okay,” he said, laughing and walking away. I love a man who lets me be me.  

I cross the street and I can see my breath - white clouds floating from my lips into a loop around my neck. The damp whites of my eyes threaten to crystallize in between blinks. Frozen air stings my cheeks.

I’m thinking about the past year and I’m thinking about self-respect, about what it means to really walk your talk. The easiest thing in the world is to be a people pleaser who pleases no one, to be a martyr holding the gun. I’ve heard about this: learned helplessness. The narratives we tell ourselves to justify why we hold ourselves in place - stuck like pink, wet tongue to icy pole. I don’t want to be a victim. I don’t want to belittle myself in the name of a false righteousness, a false idol. I want to be truly righteous, a lover and champion of Truth and Beauty. I want to be agentic and responsible and resilient and empowered. I’m talking real boss bitch vibes. As I walk into the bar, I know that to be anything at all requires sacrifice. 

Bria arrives shortly after and we spend two hours catching up, shrieking, laughing. Life is so crazy and people are crazier. But like Simone Weil says, “We must not weep and in the same instant, hope that someone will see us weeping and be moved to pity. We must not weep to receive consolation. We must weep to let the tears flow.” And I think what she’s talking about is, again, self-respect. Which is really about respect for Life, which is really about respect for God or Universe or The All or whatever you want to call it. You have to make your choices and stand by them - head high, face beat and all that.

The next week I have brunch with Hanna, my sweet one, and I hold her hand in Milou as I watch her tears flow. I’m having the breakfast plate and green tea. She is having the burger and chamomile tea. We witness each other. She tells me her story. I tell her the truth. No consolation, no coddling. Only faith. Only courage. Only two bad bitches telling each other exaaaaaactly. Outside, it starts raining, fogging at the windows. 

All I’ve ever wanted was for the good people to come and to stay - and I know that these words ring a bell inside even the cagiest motherfucker. Unfortunately, it’s too easy to be blinded by common desires, to confuse wanting with having, to try to fit a square peg into the shape of a star. To respect yourself is to love the bittersweet taste of truth. “To love truth means to endure the void and, as a result, to accept death. Truth is on the side of death.” Again, Simone Weil just knows. 

And again, I walk home in the cold. Days later, the winter equinox comes and goes, the longest night behind me now.