There comes a
time when you are alone in your own little kitchen at night, looking at a
tomato and think it’s just me, should I
slice this and waste half or just go without that can make you think of John
Donne. It is an unlikely comparison but
I assure you it makes sense, because John Donne wrote “Every Man’s death
diminishes me.” If that is true, then
every person standing alone at their kitchen counter late at night wondering if
his or her worth is greater than a whole tomato diminishes my own self-worth. So,
I want to tell you what you are worth:
You are worth
being kissed. Not just any kiss but the
type that sends pulses of electricity through your body and feels like the
answer to the hunger that has been trapped inside of you for a thousand years
and sucks so much air from your lungs that you think you will never breathe
again.
You are worth
being giddy. Giddy every time you see
him at the end of an absence, whether an hour, a day or a week. Having your heart skip a beat uncontrollably
as his face lights up when he sees you and flashes a big goofy grin.
You are worth
being objectified: objectified by someone
who loves you so much that he can’t keep his hands and eyes off of you as you
pass through the room. Worth being pinched and slapped on your rear-end because
he loves you so much that he can’t see anything but physical perfection.
You are worth
being loved unconditionally: loved by
your parents, your siblings, your friends and your other half. Loved for the person you are and not the
person you will become. Not the
potentially new and improved you, but the one on Tuesday morning before you
have washed your hair and brushed your teeth.
You are worth
a big wedding: a wedding under a big
white tent with a thousand twinkling lights on a perfect June day. A wedding where friends and family laugh and
cry and make embarrassing toasts and drink too much and dance and hug you and
kiss you and tell you that they wish they had a love like yours.
You are worth
a marriage that is legal: by the federal government, in all fifty states, in
all countries.
You are worth
great sex: Without guilt, without shame
but with wild abandon and frequency; sometimes just for the pure animal
instinct of it and sometimes for the intimate act of joining your souls, but
always consensual.
You are worth
a pet name: pookie, sweetie, boo-boo, schmoopie,
honey, handsome, hubby, dumpling, darling or monkey-butt.
You are worth
being a parent: No matter how they come into your life, no matter if it is a child
a dog a cat or a mouse.
You are worth
spooning: Late at night in your bed when
the moon casts soft shadows and in the early morning half-light surrounded by the
scent and warmth of his skin when he says “five more minutes” and you wish for
five hundred more years.
When a gay
teenager in Mississippi, a middle aged man in Chicago or a lonely housewife in Kansas wonders if they will
ever be loved and decides that life is not worth living, then I am the lesser
for it. Because your worth is my worth
and not so very long ago, I decided that I was worth the whole tomato. And so are you.
Linking up with Yeah Write
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