I love the relatively new freckle on the tender side of my left pointer finger. I love that if you look closely enough you can see the wrinkles that separate it into four smaller freckles. I like to think of it as the mark of a challenge that I faced—the kiss of some difficult experience. I don’t remember exactly when it showed up, so I can’t pin it to any experience in particular. Instead my freckle represents the culmination of my experience—essentially it is me. When I first noticed it, I thought it was a sliver so I dug it out with fingernail clippers. But when the skin grew back, it was still brown, a little bigger than before. Its freckly-roots go down too far to erase, like the core of my character. When I fear change, I look at my freckle and remember the strength of my inner nature and the impossibility of losing it. When I am cut down, my freckle represents the promise that I will grow back, a little stronger than before. When I feel inadequate, I cup both my hands in front of my face and think how much I prefer that unique little sun-scar to no scar at all and then I don’t feel inadequate anymore because I understand that inadequacy is just the place where a little brown spot will be after the Son works on it for a while.

Life. Unbearable grief that is made deeper by the exquisiteness of the joy that it destroys. Agony. How do our frail souls bear it? The happiness that quakes inside and threatens to burst and the sorrow that tears and punches and aches. What is it about sorrow that is so beautiful? I read once in a story about a girl who felt the sorrow of the entire world in her girl-sized heart. She was so pure and innocent that each new grief knocked her over, consumed her, debilitated her—until she decided not to bear it anymore. And she took her own life in pursuit of a place where she would not feel. What stops me from following her there? Life. The current that wraps around my heart, pulsing with sorrow made more beautiful by the peace that envelopes it. Life is sorrow. Life is joy. And I cannot bear to pull myself out of its river. I yearn to experience it more, though it flows all over me, trying to soak it in even while I drown. I cannot wrench feeling from my heart, for it is woven into every fiber. It is my heart. And since I would not comprehend joy without understanding pain, I rejoice in my pain, because it means I can feel. Each tear in my heart heals, and each scar renders my heart more capable to love. And ‘to love’ is simply the verb form of ‘joy’.

I need...[in addition to oxygen]

I need somebody to love.

I don’t necessarily mean a boyfriend. Boyfriends aren’t the only people who can give and receive love. I need a little sister to nurture. I need a Mom to roll my eyes at. I need a brother to look up to or a chicken’s coop to clean. I need to laugh at my Dad’s Harvard humor.

Right now all I have is my plants. And my roommates will tell you that I have enough of them.

I whisper praise to their little green tendrils.

I flood their air with Chopin and Tchaikovsky.

I sing.

I tuck them in, and I monitor their water levels.

I am with them when they wake every morning.

Most of my plants are doing great; although, some of them have rejected my love and simply refuse to grow. My Petunias are growing out instead of up, my Snapdragon is growing sideways, and what should be my Gazanias look instead like ocean barnacles. I love dumping excessive care on my plants, but the most they can give back is a little oxygen. Oxygen is essential to life of course, but my spirit is suffering from a lack of intimacy.

We are relational beings. Our identities are defined by our relationship with God as His children. We live off of love. So being away from home, where nine people know me well, love me anyway, and share a close connection with me, is obviously difficult. College dorms seem to be somewhat of a paradox: there are six of us crammed into such close corners, yet none of us feel very close. It’s the anomaly of feeling alone in a crowded room; we’re all isolated together.

So please, this Valentine’s Day, instead of bringing me a dozen roses to place beside my dormant garden, bring me somebody to love. Come over to my apartment and spend time with me. Build a bridge between our hearts as I soak in the person that you are by listening to you talk about nothing in particular. Maybe we’ll sprout little tendrils of our own.