Parachemical Love

Throughout life, I have had the privilege of experiencing how delicate a beating heart is. One day, you are here, and one, you are not. When I was younger, I went through chemotherapy and stayed in a Ronald McDonald house, and I realized that life is fragile at a young age. I often met other kids who were going through chemotherapy or radiation at the house, and the beauty of being a kid is that you could be dying but have a smile on your face, beauty that is often short-lived as a child. There is an unparalleled mindset of being a kid, young and fruitful, not yet scolded by life, curious and naïve. Chemotherapy was the first event where I realized I was living, but I did not know this when I was seven, only when I was much older, looking back into my memories and undressing them one by one. As I continue to undress these memories the older I get, I am able to taste the air differently and feel those moments in time for what they were. They were time capsules being formed in real time, seeds being planted to blossom years later, conversations that I would never be able to predict, and love that you can only experience in fairytales.

Time capsules were being created that I would later undress one by one. Every memory that has ever been created and harnessed is a time capsule, all with their own descriptors and emotions. Going through chemotherapy gave me life’s greatest gift. It has given me the ability to connect and understand others effortlessly and see and feel other people’s pain, guided by intuition and perception in a perfect symbiosis drawing from the deepest parts of my experience with life and death. The most beautiful stories lie in between those two extremes. The most beautiful stories lie between the cold veins and the warmest sunsets. Oftentimes, we judge ourselves for not being perfect; why would you ever want to be perfect? The moment we try to establish perfection as a metric, we cease to show the world the version of us that is meant to exist; you do the world a disservice when you mindlessly show up as anything but yourself. Our story lies in the imperfection. Somewhere along the road, someone told us you couldn’t be the way that you were, and it led to a hot stove effect; you never explored that part of you again, and if you do, you do it in such a way that you feel shame. There are older versions of you that only exist because other people give them oxygen, and you are not obligated to keep those versions alive to make other people happy. But you are obligated to keep the versions of you alive that make you happy.

The most beautiful stories lie in between those two extremes. The most beautiful stories lie between the cold veins and the warmest sunsets. Oftentimes, we judge ourselves for not being perfect; why would you ever want to be perfect? Our story lies in the imperfection. Somewhere along the road, someone told us you couldn't be the way that you were, and it led to a hot stove effect; you never explored that part of you again, and if you do, you do it in such a way that you feel shame.

When we abandon the soul and do not look inwards to those parts of yourselves that need more conversations we do a great disservice to ourselves and to the world.