RIC > ATL > LAX: 30,000 Feet Above the Noise
As I have grown older, I have begun to understand that silence is not something the world gives you, it is something you must steal back from it.
For years now, my routine has been the same: Richmond to Atlanta, Atlanta to Los Angeles. In that space, I watch films. Not as a distraction, but as a reminder that I once believed in stories the way a man believes in salvation.
On this trip, I watched Love, Brooklyn. It reminded me, almost against your will, why I loved movies in the first place. But it also reminded me of something I did not expect to meet on that flight.
It reminded me of love.
Not the kind that people post about, but the kind that rewrites your future while you’re still trying to understand your present. It reminded me of my first love, and the unbearable truth we eventually reached:
Love is not the same thing as safety. Love is not the same thing as compatibility.
We were not good for each other. We discovered it slowly, the way you discover a leak in your home. And I realized that there are loves you survive,not because they weren’t real, but because they were real enough to take almost everything from you.
Betrayal Rarely Looks Like a Knife
Years later, I met a friend who came to thank me for my mentorship. But as he spoke, I knew the part of the story he was editing out: He had tracked down my ex. He had dated her. And he never thought it honorable to mention it to me.
It is a terrible thing to sit with someone and realize that what they admire in you is the very thing they secretly resent.
They love the light you carry, but they would prefer you carried it somewhere else.
They applaud your talent, but only if it doesn’t embarrass them.
They call you brother, but they are keeping score.
Betrayal looks like a handshake. It looks like laughter. Sometimes silence is not peace; sometimes silence is the crime.
Belonging to Yourself
The movie reminded me that most things do not matter. Status does not matter. Praise does not matter. What matters is what is meant for you.
I sat there in that airplane seat, finally grateful. Not for the betrayals, but for what they produced in me: A love for myself I had once mistaken for arrogance.
When you love yourself, you stop negotiating with ghosts. You stop begging people to be decent.
And you begin—slowly,painfully—to belong to yourself.