Fleur d'amour.
Do you want love or do you want power?
It's 11:15 pm.
I'm in my hometown, and my friend of 20 years and I find ourselves tethered to the seats of her burgundy RAV-4. Gently, a vortex of conversation captivates us both. One that is unwilling to release its captives until its purpose has been revealed, and on this chilled Texas evening, we suspend together both in time and space.
Nia recalls a dream.
Roses lay around her, and she is surrounded by familiar faces and strange ones too. In the alternate reality of Nia's mind, this place serves as a limbo — a sort of holding pattern. Each rose symbolizes the thread of one's life, and to continue forward, each person must choose.
The rose of joy?
The rose of peace?
Maybe the rose of hope?
Before her lays a sea of many roses, but only one choice.
One by one, each person picks their rose and vanishes into life’s oblivion. Nia sees her siblings have just picked the rose for their lives, and in the distance, she notices a couple starting to argue. Suspended in observation, she simultaneously becomes a witness to the couple and the dwindling crowd as they choose and leave. Nia’s gaze travels to her left thigh as a pinch demands her attention. A thorned rose begins to twirl and twist across her body.
The rose of power begins to choose her.
Like an unwanted guest, Nia painfully dislodges the rose of power from her body. Ripping the rose in protest, she proclaims, “ I don't want power. I want love!”
As she finished describing her dream I laughed and asked her if she took shrooms that night. Per usual I was using humor to cut the fact that I felt myself in her dream. I felt the rose gripping my body as she spoke and I couldn’t believe that someone else’s dream could open my eyes in ways I couldn’t see.
She repeated, “I don't want power. I want love.”
I leaned back against the car seat, meeting her eyes, and like a mantra I repeated after her, “I don't want power. I want love.”
If we simmered down many of the choices of our lives, oftentimes it would not reveal someone going after their dreams or following what they love but exposes a person who wanted power. The human experiance has been deduced to forms of chasing anything that could remove the lingering shadow of powerlessness we all seem to be running from.
Like the young girl who never felt seen dreaming of her name in lights.
The disgruntled med student who hates the sight of blood but loves the sound of Dr.
Or the teacher who secretly but not so secretly hates kids but craves control.
Are these really dreams or do they point to our desire to feel powerful in a world that is constantly stifling it from us?
Do you really love what you say you do or does the idea of it make you feel powerful?
Sometimes, I feel like we’ve been choosing power so long we can't distinguish it from the idea of love.
Power is immediately satisfying, constantly needing momentum, giving us the illusion of control, but soon, it will meet its fate in the fires of burnout.
While love is a slow death, a submission, a choice to release all control that makes you initially feel defeated, and right when you think all has been lost, it secretes a steady stream of power that no one can break.
Love cannot exist in the pursuit of power but sustained power exists in the pursuit of love.
In our desire for power, we leave all our love behind not knowing that love was all the everlasting power we needed. When all power grabs cease to feed the void we realize that the only option we have left is love.
Next time a choice presents itself for you both life alternating and mundane ask yourself:
Are you choosing love or power?
The moment finally released us both and I tearfully hugged Nia goodbye. I climb the steps toward the apartment and I'm in awe, overwhelmingly grateful that the people who were placed in my life at the tender age of 14 can still to this day pour perspective, inspiration, and meaning into my world after all these years, all these achieved dreams, all the cities these eyes have seen, all these so-called influential people I've met, all of the lives I've lived.
No matter where I went or what I did — love was always here.
Hi Waterloo Road Readers! Happy Monday and wishing you a beautiful week ahead! Y’all are really our here writing things that are blowing my mind and expanding my perspectives on life. I’m just in awe of the talent on
. These are a few of my favoite pieces i’ve read recently. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.Love Always,
Jourdana
Jourdana! This was so powerful. At some point last year I said something similar to a friend about not wanting a particular kind of power. She said "you want soft power". This dream and your questions remind me of where I was at that time, but also where I am today as l'm navigating a potential career change. Lots to think about.
That’s a profound dream your friend had, and what thought provoking questions. Thank you for sharing this!