This is one of the rare pieces that doesn’t talk about healing ... it conducts it.
The refusal of arrival. The insistence that resurrection contains the grave. The truth that rising is not a climax but a daily, sometimes lonely, practice.
“My healing became my cruelty” stopped me cold.
Thank you, Taylor, for writing something that doesn’t resolve the tension,
You caught the staying, not the finish. That really does mean everything to me. I think we see so much writing that rushes toward a neat resolution, when in my context resurrection has to leave room for what comes next, especially when I don’t yet know what that is.
When things get packaged too cleanly, it can end up doing a disservice. Everyone’s challenges move differently. For me, saying this is where I am right now feels like a way of meeting people where they might be, without asking them to feel resolved or fixed or ahead of themselves.
Thank you for reading it that way. I didn’t want it to land cleanly or all at once. I wanted it to swell, to return, to stay in the body. Knowing you felt that and went back in again really matters to me.
It took me days to finish this in a way that felt like it matched the energy of the piece. I had tears in my eyes through every single word following this quote -
"Because I know what Mahler knew and what three years taught me: resurrection isn’t the moment you arrive. It’s every moment after, when you have to keep choosing to stay risen."
My tears weren't merely for me, they were for you. For the struggle and pain you have gone through to become the man you are right now, the one who has helped me be one of the 1,000 people who see themselves differently now, the one who puts every heart-aching breathe into the words he writes, and still chooses to share them with a world that's never known how to accept a man like you. This piece touched me in ways I may not be able to articulate in a simple comment. Because some of the tears were for me. My fear of not being able to rise again, the feeling that I need to ask for permission, yet I still get out of bed, some days later and harder than others, but I rise. I awaken each morning, even on the days that I hardly feel like being awake is worth it. The friends I have lost as I have climbed, fallen, and climbed again. The love your father gives you, trying to understand you, the one I have long wished my father was willing to try to do for me.
You had mentioned to me that you were writing this piece, and I had looked forward to it since that moment. I wanted to know where this would go, how you would approach writing it, and if your concerns about how it would come out would prove true. This was fantastically written. The way I could feel the music you were describing, despite not having listened to the song, and I likely didn't hear it as it actually sounds, my strings, violins, brass, and vocals will have different tones, pitches, etc, but I heard the symphony as you conducted it. I saw your healing and resurrection, rising through everything you have spoken on in an article, and all the things you still have yet to put on here. You have a gift, one that I am beyond grateful to be privy to, and you deserve all the things you yearn for, all the things you have already gained, and all that is still to come. Thank you for your work, thank you for being here.
This is one of the rare pieces that doesn’t talk about healing ... it conducts it.
The refusal of arrival. The insistence that resurrection contains the grave. The truth that rising is not a climax but a daily, sometimes lonely, practice.
“My healing became my cruelty” stopped me cold.
Thank you, Taylor, for writing something that doesn’t resolve the tension,
and therefore tells the truth.
You caught the staying, not the finish. That really does mean everything to me. I think we see so much writing that rushes toward a neat resolution, when in my context resurrection has to leave room for what comes next, especially when I don’t yet know what that is.
When things get packaged too cleanly, it can end up doing a disservice. Everyone’s challenges move differently. For me, saying this is where I am right now feels like a way of meeting people where they might be, without asking them to feel resolved or fixed or ahead of themselves.
Thank you for being with it the way you were.
Thank you for this beautiful piece of writing. I read it twice, and each time I felt swells of emotion. A very personal symphony.
Thank you for reading it that way. I didn’t want it to land cleanly or all at once. I wanted it to swell, to return, to stay in the body. Knowing you felt that and went back in again really matters to me.
It took me days to finish this in a way that felt like it matched the energy of the piece. I had tears in my eyes through every single word following this quote -
"Because I know what Mahler knew and what three years taught me: resurrection isn’t the moment you arrive. It’s every moment after, when you have to keep choosing to stay risen."
My tears weren't merely for me, they were for you. For the struggle and pain you have gone through to become the man you are right now, the one who has helped me be one of the 1,000 people who see themselves differently now, the one who puts every heart-aching breathe into the words he writes, and still chooses to share them with a world that's never known how to accept a man like you. This piece touched me in ways I may not be able to articulate in a simple comment. Because some of the tears were for me. My fear of not being able to rise again, the feeling that I need to ask for permission, yet I still get out of bed, some days later and harder than others, but I rise. I awaken each morning, even on the days that I hardly feel like being awake is worth it. The friends I have lost as I have climbed, fallen, and climbed again. The love your father gives you, trying to understand you, the one I have long wished my father was willing to try to do for me.
You had mentioned to me that you were writing this piece, and I had looked forward to it since that moment. I wanted to know where this would go, how you would approach writing it, and if your concerns about how it would come out would prove true. This was fantastically written. The way I could feel the music you were describing, despite not having listened to the song, and I likely didn't hear it as it actually sounds, my strings, violins, brass, and vocals will have different tones, pitches, etc, but I heard the symphony as you conducted it. I saw your healing and resurrection, rising through everything you have spoken on in an article, and all the things you still have yet to put on here. You have a gift, one that I am beyond grateful to be privy to, and you deserve all the things you yearn for, all the things you have already gained, and all that is still to come. Thank you for your work, thank you for being here.