It is not self-aggrandizing to say, nor is it meant to be boastful, when I tell you that I have a deep and abiding love for you. If we’ve known each other for years and consider ourselves thick as thieves, or if you befriended me just because we met a long time ago, I want you to know that I genuinely care about you.
I don’t know all of your struggles or the painful secrets you keep hidden. Not your fears or your worry. And I certainly don’t know all the things that you know; nor will I ever.
What I do know is that you are precious. Valuable. To be able to share this lifetime, at the same time you are living out your own adventure on this miraculous world of ours, makes me tremendously fortunate. It affords me the only kind of wealth that increases the human heart’s happiness, gives life its sweetness, makes it grow.
I wake up every morning, and what I say next will appear to be nothing more than familiar millennial hyperbole to you (Though I assure you it is not)–every morning I wake up and I think about you. Many of you individually, but all of you as a whole, certainly.
That’s my expression of care.
I believe in you.
When you look in the mirror at a face that no longer looks familiar or are sitting at your desk toiling away in the job that doesn’t appreciate you or doesn’t fit the cut of life you once measured for yourself– I want you to remember that there is one, obscure author in Houston, Texas who is pulling for you. A man of the arena who has a high enthusiasm for you, who wants to see you quell the storm and ride the thunder. A man who knows that you’re just as strong as any of us and just as worthy of all our kindness.
I believe that, from the highest strand of hair, right through flesh, heart, bone, marrow, and soul. When it comes to you, just you, I believe.
I wish I could show you how big that emotion is or how grand and generous my love is for you. I can’t draw it for you or compose it for you, but I can tell you, with this little gift of words I’ve been working on for so long.
Your stories matter. I believe that very firmly. They matter because you matter; not because of what you have or have not done, but because you exist.
You’re filled with love and no matter what happens in this shared world of ours, I want you to remember, I’m absolutely in love with all that love inside you.
And I always will be.