Power of Love/Love Power

I looked down at my feet while holding a glass of cold, crisp champagne under the humid island sun. They were muddy—kid muddy, good, and dirty. An overwhelming feeling of home settled into my body. Home, for me, is rooted in being emotionally and physically safe, feeling unquestionably worthy, and experiencing joy that persists even amid life’s tensions.

In this muddy reality, I found myself helping one of my chosen mothers put lights on her "Christmas tree." I put that in quotes because it was less an evergreen and more a tropical (kind-of-dying) outdoor tree. Still, there we were, making Christmas tree fetch happen. It had been raining for weeks—the kind of rain where water pours from the sky in big, full drops. The ground beneath the tree had turned into a mosh pit of mud. Each step was a symphony of squelches and sloshes that tickled us to no end. At that moment, we were just two kids, champagne-tipsy, having the time of our lives.

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We were also the last two people who should’ve been charged with this task. Between the two of us, I’m the tallest, and at my most recent doctor’s appointment, I made them check my height because I’m sure I’m shrinking. I remain a solid 5’2 and a half. Imagine two elves—slightly buzzed, sliding about in the mud, tossing strings of lights into the air, hoping they’d catch on the branches of a nearing-end-of-life tropical tree. That was us, creating memories we can hold—parental love in its healthiest form.

Parental love is complex for me. So much of what we crave, we also fear, and our actions often bring those fears into reality. To be in this new form of parental love, one of my choosing feels like immersive therapy. Sometimes, it’s playful; other times, it’s ancestral wisdom passed around. Often, it’s a litany of slow tasks and heavy errands, like sitting in the backseat of a car as we run from one grocery store to another because they like the eggs at one place and the bean sprouts at another. A younger version of me would’ve been annoyed in that backseat, but as someone who last laid eyes on the people who raised me more than a decade ago, I’m mostly overwhelmed by the grace of this life. To experience any of this again feels miraculous. In that car, I’m a kid without a care. Parts of my childhood are reimagined and healed during those rides.

To be loved once is a marvel; everything beyond that is a miracle at work. When you see me, you’re seeing the power of love. But love, once it enters the human conscience, becomes complex.

Whenever I’m with my chosen parents, I get the opportunity to be parented—something I denied needing for years. I feared feeling that kind of love again, only to have it ripped away, leaving me in freefall. I’ve suffered the loss of parental love multiple times in this life. There was death, but long before that, I knew what it meant to long for a parent who still lived. Thankfully, the universe never let a day go by without offering me a fortitude of benevolent love through the unwavering guardianship of others. Still, I’d be remiss not to admit that I long for the consistent love of my birth parents: one I never knew and one who gave their all but still fell short. Sometimes, we fall short of our desires, even with our beloved children. I hope they exist in peace, knowing their love burned brighter even when darkness befell them. The universe activated a village on our behalf.

The lights on the tree are now twinkling against the night sky—our little accomplishment for the day. We sit back and marvel at the work of our hands and hearts. I feel that tinge of fear some of us experience when love feels too good. But I quiet that voice and let a gentler one rise: “You are safe. You are worthy. You are home.”

I am home.

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