Stay Love 💜
Don't let them take that from you, too.
Stay love.
Stay open.
Stay you.
Over this past week, I’ve been mad and sad and then sad and mad again.
And so damn tired of fighting. Worse, I know this cycle will repeat for the next four years. (Ugh! I don’t even like typing that!)
But, at my core, I am a Yankee pragmatist, proudly born into a strong immigrant family where we believe in facing things honestly … and together.
This coming storm in America is what will be, whether I like it or not. (I don’t like it … but I accept it.) So I have grieved (and will grieve again) and now is the time to make decisions on what happens next.
On what I do next. On who I am next.
But that last line is silly. Because my best me is who I am now.
It took me 58 years to make this version of Lisbeth Darsh and I deeply know that she’s the best Lisbeth Darsh yet.
I won’t let them take her from me now.
And I hope you don’t let them take you from you.
As hard as it will be in the coming hours, days, weeks, months, and years, you have one option: be you or be someone less than you.
When it’s easy … and when it’s hard.
You can turn cynical, angrier, bitter, or just check out of anything but caring for yourself. And all answers will be graded as correct for you.
Because, although I don’t want to say it, we all know this much is true: Life is hard and it’s about to get harder.
Still, I have hope — and it’s a very specific hope right now.
(Don’t listen to those who only believe in a big hope or no hope at all. The truth is that hope comes in gradations, like colors. You can be a pale blue hope or a robust indigo hope, a medium-grey hope or a barely-there pitch-black hope.
And you can have none of that color one day only to have it all come roaring back in a warm moment, flooding your senses when you least expect it. Children can make that happen. Sometimes, the sunrise. Often dogs. But, mostly, this is love showing itself to your own heart. This is how we keep breathing.)
So here’s my big, specific hope right now: I hope you choose to stay you. I hope you choose to improve you. And I hope you choose to love.
Even if it gets dark. Even when the choices are difficult.
Because the real you is beautiful.
Stay you.
Stay open.
Stay love.
This is the best advice I can give to you and to me.
Help. Speak up. Stand up. Fight back.
And don’t give in before, during, or after.
(Read this book “On Tyranny”. Soon. Don’t wait. It’s short and you can skim it.)
Fight for the right to be free and to live life as you want to, not as someone says you must. (And fight for this right for your children … and their children.)
And I know this on a deeper level, too:
Love will win. Good will win.
Eventually. It always does.
But we will all have to fight for it more than ever.
So stay safe. Flip up your collar. Huddle with the others under the awning. The winds are picking up. You will need one another. Stay close.
P.S. My next post will be about how to stay safe. Look for it. I’m sad and mad but I’m a warrior — and warriors fight. I hope you’ll consider doing the same.
And if you want more of these words? Subscribe. I just lowered the price because I want to help as many people as I can get through these next four years. If you or a friend cannot afford a subscription, hit reply on this email and let me know. I’ll take care of you. We are all in this together.
Highly recommend the book for all.
On Tyranny read. Gifted to a friend so we can discuss. Ordered Klemperer’s The Language of the Third Reich. I think I am on the way out of the wallowing phase and hopefully headed into a try to preserve our country phase.