Frankly Put: Holding Space For Love
When one sits and thinks about the things they say, one really begins to notice little quirks in themselves that their inner self cannot see. In this case, lately, it seems my pattern of speech has an addiction to “holding space” but what does that even mean?
I keep thinking about the different levels of interpersonal relationships that demand that space is held for them in life. I think about romantic relationships, platonic, familial and the relationship with self. I wonder in what way each level has called for space in my life. Sometimes, when I am silent, these are the kind of things that go on in my head and since it is February, it only makes sense that this is the trajectory.
When I think of platonic love, I think of what my friends unconsciously demand of me. How I should speak to them — the jokes I can make, the advice I can sound out, the silence that tends to speak more volumes than any words I can think of. I think of how I walk through life with them, through hardships and through the highs of life.
For every eye that I have caught searching for me in the crowd. For every ear that keeps looking for the sounds of claps and affirmation that found my voice and cheers. For the chaotic mind that just needed calm and solace that found me and sat next to me long enough to find its own calm. For the silent struggles looking for one last push that found my words of encouragement. I wonder if, in the space I held, you found what you searched for.
In some ways, I am calling myself out for slacking with the friendships in my life. What are the things that I disrespected myself with by entertaining? Where are those boundaries that I set and do they also protect my friends as they protect me? Why is holding that space so important to me?
When I think of familial love, I think of what family means at its base level. If we were to physically tier the relationships we have, where would they fall? I think there would be sunken areas where I am accommodating people of a lower tier and risen areas where I am hosting the people who at the end of the day are family. We glorify this term because we all crave to have one and there is no set way between two people in how we define it yet we know what it means.
Somewhere along the line, space held for family transcended blood relations. On the list of priorities, I know who gets time made for them immediately and those who I will look for the time for. Where the thought of black tax doesn’t hurt because it is in the dynamics of provision and love. Where celebrations feel like shared joy in the struggle and where they feel like carrying along a weight that drags down the vibes.
Sometimes I wish I could turn back into a child and say honestly that unconditionally, I hold space for every Tom, Dick and Harry who carries a name similar to the ones along the line of those who came before me. That space, these days, is just a little too coveted to be so freely given out. Sue me but I might just gate-keep this space a little more. Titles like brother, father, cousin and uncle mean something.
Love tastes a little different romantically and in a way that makes it a little more difficult to define a space for. It transcends different levels and to confine it to just one is to minimize it in some way. Kinda like a Venn diagram. Romantically, holding space looks like holding space for a friend, like holding space for family, like holding space for something a little deeper than that sometimes.
Space that calls for the banter that friends do, priority in making time, holding emotions like they are your own, grace to make mistakes and grow within that interaction. They will tell you that one must not wish for love that is tailor-made but that is willing to accommodate all your bumps and dents with every which way you grow but still, look good and feel good on you.
Where is the space in that love for the days when your gut decides it wants to be bloated? Where is the space in that love for the nights your muscles feel pumped up from lifting your days' worries and strife? Where is the space in that love to feel small and insignificant where you are fighting your imposter syndrome? Where is the space in that love to carry the scars that need a little more care because the fabric sometimes rubs on them and opens them up? Where is the space for the days when you want to show off and show out?
While we are holding space for others, let us not forget the landlord. If it’s anything to go by, I think I spent a little too much time dividing my own land to make space for others. Evicting people and watching the things they build there fall apart is always so disheartening. When I come back home to myself though, I wonder what the space would look like.
There are nights I think of, where self-care was a lot of self-regulation and cleaning up. Taking out the emotional baggage I soaked up from people. Where it was grounding the stirred-up thought and emotions people never care to check for. It was opening up the windows to let myself breathe with the way I held my breath around people.
Some days, I’d look over to the spaces people seemed to create for themselves but life’s taught me, our hands have the same fundamentals but look different so why must the space we hold look the same? So what if your space isn’t as large as others? So what if it is too neat and tidy? So what if it’s messy? It’s yours, hold it. That’s the only demand of you.
Love demands a space big enough to hold it, it will try to fit in what you give it so hold space big enough to have what you can host fit… to put it Frankly.
