I want you to hold my hand. Not because I reached for it, but because you gave it to me. I want to make a transaction with you, dear one, that when you look into my eyes you give me courage again and I eagerly take it. I want you to smile at me, to cause a stirring in me again when the butterflies wake after a long hibernation. I want you to crush me to you, and hold me there, scaring all of my worries away and making them run for the hills while we stand in the sun. I want you to brush the hair away from my face, to take away my armor so you can see into my eyes like the windows to my heart. I want you to hold my hand, and squeeze it tight. Now let’s be on our way.

There is beauty in a broken spirit. In giving up. Because in turn we can be held. Those lovely people in our lives, the sweet souls that extend a hand we didn’t ask for. Those are the people that hold us as we break. There is beauty in being held, and in letting someone hold you. Those sweet friends that look upon you with open arms. They willingly give you their strength and you hesitantly take it. Because all in good time you know that for now you will be held, for now you will be broken. Because all in good time you will become whole again, and your strength will be the refuge of another.

How fortunate are we to have someone to hold our hand. Be it a friend or a stranger. A hand is a hand. And within that palm lies a heart open for you, because they know you are too fearful to be the first one to fold your cards even when you lost too long ago.

We forget what it feels like to take off our armor, painted on after all these years, too stained to come off. But even the hand of a stranger in unexpected places reaches out across a crowd to brush away the hair in your face; revealing two fearful eyes stripped of their armor. To be seen by another is like an extended hand, beckoning you to stand tall apart from your armor and to become raw, broken, and beautiful again. To become honest.

We take advantage of the fact that we do not have to be alone in our travels, that our adventures are laden with soft smiles and infectious laughs and charming boys that give you giggles. We never have to be alone because there is a secret behind that hand you want to hold, those eyes that give you courage, that smile that gives you butterflies. The secret is that you are all that they are to you. So let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see, hand in hand, heart in heart; matching laugh for laugh as we count the clouds.

I just want you to hold my hand, fix my hair, now let’s be on our way.