all of me.
There’s no satisfying way to write this. I feel the weight of last night-today’s news sitting on my heart. Texas is such a big state. When I drove through it with Nadia, we drove through just the top, and fast. State lines are just lines, drawn by thieves and patrolled by deputized idiots, both designed to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and your heartbeat quicken. Feel the wheels on gravel behind you, feel the fear.
Now is the time for radical love.
It’s time now to let go of the notion that you understand someone’s “point of view” or “situation” or “exceptions for __________.” It’s time to recognize that everyone — everyone — knows someone who had an abortion.
Love me, love my abortion. You don’t have to like it, but you have to love me. And if you love me, you have to love all of me. You have to love my joy, my terrible terrible news, my hard choice, my past, my beautiful children, the art I make, the company I keep. And if you love me, you have to love all of it, messy, broken, beautiful. And if you love me, you have to love your neighbor. Which is everyone. You have to love everyone. Every pregnant person. This one and the next one and the next one and you might not want to love each situation, but you have to at least try. You don’t have to ask any questions or even know the whole story. You don’t have to know their name. The thing about radical acceptance is that it exists without nuance or subtlety. It’s all love. It’s all fair.
Why should I have to write that the decision was actually easy? Why should I have to tell you that the procedure was _______ or ________ or _______? Why should I have to spill the whole sad story to make you know that there is no actual black and white, that it’s all grey gray gris grise and you have to love us.
Me, her, her her, her, them, her, her. If you don’t love us, you can’t love me.
