Losing "love" to find Hope

We heard it a lot. Over and over and over. For years.

"I love you." "Love you bunches." "Love you!" "I love you so much!"

For as many times as it was said, it was unsaid. Retracted. Voided. Erased. Forgotten.

"Love," or the illusion of it in friendship-form, had built what was almost great. It felt like hope. It seemed like a plan. It looked beautiful, on the outside.

But everything changed when something else crept in, and I don't even know what. It was bigger, deeper, more consuming than I ever could have imagined. I can't begin to comprehend what flipped the switch, but whatever it was, it was definitely enough.

"Love" ended everything. It broke trust. It broke hearts.

Then nothing. No goodbye. No real end. Just a door pulled shut behind on the way out. No "love" after all.

But, at its core, it's just a business. It will survive.   And it was only a friendship. The hurt will fade.

I don't have to endure the same harsh, harmful, horrifying consequences that false "love" has on the artisans who turn their pain into products for our store. The artisans who cling to the hope that their handiwork can save them from hardship. The artisans whose very lives depend on the real side of love in the empathy and compassion of strangers.

It isn't my body that was shattered by delusions of love.

It isn't my whole soul that shrank into the deepest depths of self-preservation.

It isn't my life that imploded and exploded simultaneously when "love" led to slavery.

It isn't my struggle to merely survive from day to day like every one of our artisan partners has experienced.

"Love" didn't sell me to the highest, or lowest, bidder to get drugs or shelter.

"Love" didn't pimp me out to the guy down the street or the neighborhood gang.

"Love" didn't force me to share nude photos or videos to avoid blackmail.

"Love" didn't rape me.

"Love" didn't beat me or abuse me or break my bones.

"Love" didn't warp my mind into believing I am what I'm told I am.

"Love" didn't mutilate my womanhood or expel me from my home because I'm female.

"Love" didn't throw acid on me or impregnate my daughter.

"Love" didn't wreck me from the inside out.

"Love" didn't steal my very being. Didn't make me a victim. Didn't suck out my joy. Didn't leave me as the battered and broken shell of a human in the wake of being trafficked, imprisoned, abandoned, neglected, abused, forgotten.

"Love" didn't try to destroy my everything while I wanted it to be my all, my savior, my hope. Because at the same time, learning to love again, learning to be loved again and to trust love again, is the only way to heal. To find peace. To climb out. To rise again. To start over. To thrive and not just survive.

So now I am reminded yet again, on even the most pathetically minute level, how caustic "love" can become when applied in the wrong way. I feel more and hurt more for our artisans who have lost so much to it, been brutally broken for it, been heartlessly abused by it. And I am even more overwhelmed and awestruck by their untethered desire to rise above even the worst of times to start life over again and better. I am even more impressed and amazed by the beauty they create out of the most painful of ashes. I am even more humbled by their journeys to become who they were made to be, even when the rest of the world tried so incredibly hard to tell them otherwise.

And I am even more dedicated to starting over and creating yet another iteration of our journey at Ethical Hope. Because they deserve another chance. Because we built a business based on providing Hope, not for us, but for those who depend on it.

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

Nelson Mandela