Dear Beautiful You…

Life Can Be Tough.  Life Can Be A Struggle.  All I Hope Is To Live Each Day As Beautifully As I Can.

Below is one of my favorite quotes from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.  A children’s novel that chronicles the story of a stuffed rabbit and his quest to become REAL through the LOVE of his owner.

“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others.  He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces…He knew that they {the other toys} would never turn into anything else.  For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.”

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fenders before Nana came to tidy the room.  “Does it mean having things buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made.” said the Skin Horse.  “It’s a thing that happens to you.  When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.  “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse.  “You become. It takes a long time.  That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand”…

“Once you are Real you can’t become unreal again.  It lasts for always.”

…Was full of secrets, locked up tight like iron mountains.

Running on empty, so out of gas.

Thought I wasn’t enough,

Found I wasn’t so tough,

Laying on the bathroom floor.

…By the grace of God, there was no other way.

I picked myself back up, I knew I had to stay.

I put one foot in front of the other, and I looked in the mirror and decided to stay.

Wasn’t gonna let {life} take me out… that way.

I thank my sister for keeping my head above the water,

when the truth was like swallowing sand.

Now every morning, (there was gonna be no more morning)…I could finally see myself again.

I know I am enough, possible to be loved.

It was not about me.

Now I have to rise above, let the universe call the bluff.

Yes, the truth will set you free.

Katy Perry

By The Grace Of God