Apologizing to my Chakras

The moment you enter my apartment, the sense of space and cleanness, no matter if it's a tornado is immediately felt; I know because these two are essentials in order for me to feel it as my home, as my sanctuary.

I remember walking into this empty apartment, as the realtor went room by room, I settled in the bedroom, in front of the longest windows I've ever seen, and I knew that all that sun was worth a million dollars and here I was, about to make it mine.

After my mother regained custody of the youngest 3, my brothers and myself; my mother wanted a new start and now as an adult and a mother, I don't blame her, in retrospect, I wish she would've understand how big that change would be for our young already traumatic brains.

Coming to NY was like a scavenger hunt game, we were in and out of shelters; this came as a result of not being able to stay with family for a prolonged period of time, and while I as a 12 year old understood that not everywhere was "home", this is when we saw how life had affected my younger brothers: it was hard to see them trying to figure out why all these places were cold and unfamiliar, every other week we were in a different neighborhood, with new neighbors, new rules and new challenges.

This was my first taste of the system, it was horrible, I remember hearing my mother cry and I would just make believe that it was all beautiful, I would make every single apartment, room or home beautiful, with paper paints, or anything I could get my hands on, I did this with my brothers too, to make the space as ours as possible and every time we had to leave we would leave them behind because they were not essentials.

I remember this one time specifically; we walked into our last apartment, with no light, it was the middle of winter, no heat, and as soon as the person walking us in , closed the door, my mother fell to the floor and broke in front of us for the very first time in our young years, before this I had heard her cry, but never did I see her as I did that night.

That night we lit candles all around and we hugged each other as tight as we could to go to sleep.

Till this day I don't know how my mother found a solution but she did, she talked to my uncle who was just about to marry my aunt in a few weeks and they arranged to have us move into his apartment since he would be moving in with my aunt. She found a job and before we knew it, we were enrolled in school in our last borough stop.

I saw my mother stand up from that kitchen floor and I saw when the look in her eyes changed; today as a mother myself I know exactly what happened that night, she got fed-up as a victim and decided to become her own hero, she decided to erased her canvas and paint it herself, and to say that I am proud of who my mother became is an understatement; I witnessed first hand how she created her own reality, and though at times it took away from what we needed from her as a mother, I admire the strength that it took for her to allowed us to have a better life, a better opportunity because at the end of the day, we had a space to call ours, for us to create our own reality; she gave us our own brushes.

At 33, I let go of everything I worked for, the money, the status, the freedom of not knowing how tomorrow would be; for a year of reflection, the year I needed as a child, the year I needed as a young adult and the year I needed as a mother coming from so much trauma to heal.

I broke down, just as my mother did that night, not in front of my kids, but in front of Universe, and I asked for the time to redirect my passion, a time for me to heal my childhood trauma because I could no longer carry it on my shoulders, I broke down but I got up and created my own reality with the people I chose to, without the people that didn't deserve to see the look in my eyes change, I stood up and I handed myself the brush.

I learned such a valuable lesson this year, my wants and my needs are like day and night, coming from hurt and chaos what I wanted was to bury all that emotion into being a workaholic mom; but what I needed was to say I love you more often, what I needed was the space to be vulnerable, what I needed was the chance to see past my fears: and though that time came with a high cost, one that I was prepared to pay, I was able to take care of myself and every thing I needed throughout this year without being uncomfortable, I trusted divine timing, I trusted Universe to bring me back to my path, and it certainly did.

XOXO

Lucy