getting up from the table

You have to learn to get up from the table when love is no longer being served. - Nina Simone⁣
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I’ve gotten up from the table so many times. I love big and I love hard and I accept love in the many different forms it can take, but it does have to take some sort of form. There has to be action behind it, even the tiniest action will do. But words are not enough. Empty promises. False hopes. Endless disappointments. That’s when I get up from the table. There are times when years later I’ll sit down at the table again to see if things have changed and sometimes they have and I can remain, but most of the time, things haven’t changed because the people haven’t changed. ⁣
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In the last year, I’ve gotten up from two tables that had made it clear that they didn’t deserve my company to begin with. Next month I’ll be sitting down at one I’d gotten up from a couple years ago. I’m sitting down with the hope that things have changed. Time will tell. ⁣
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But today, today I am getting up from a table that I’ve fought for so long to sit at. A table that shouldn’t have been a fight at all. A table that I’ve always felt like I’ve belonged at, but in the end has proven to not serve me. Today, I get up from the table that promised love but never truly delivered it. Today, I build my own table where love is served freely. At my table love is given and received without a struggle, without justification, without judgement because we shouldn’t have to fight for love. We shouldn’t have to fight for a seat at the table.