The day that I chose to be brave and truly be who I am, all began with the day that I decided to come home to myself. After 20 years of fighting against myself and wishing to be rid of this life, one of my bravest moments was the day that I decided to go back and get that little girl inside of me who was for far too long forsaken. To go back, to hold her, and to bring her back home. I decided to face myself and all of the skeletons in the closet that came alongside that. I decided to be brave. Despite the anxiety convincing me of my fears and the depression of my faults, I chose to stay and I chose to fight. Initially reading the topic for this piece of writing, I was trying to think back to a specific moment or day that I had chosen to show up just exactly as I am. What I am coming to realize is that there is not one perfect moment that encaptures that moment of authenticity, of honouring myself in her totality and her truth. But rather that moment of undeniable and insurmountable bravery is played out every single day, every single time I am posed with a choice. The choice to surrender to the unkind and deprecating thoughts, or to take the ash and to rise from it. Each time my brain tries to convince me that I am unworthy or incapable, when my ego screams at me about all of the things I cannot do, and especially on the days that my mind is like a battlefield and the casualties are everywhere, where my mind tries to convince me that this world is better off without me in it, these are the real moments that make up for me living out a life as my bravest and truest self. Each time I declare that no matter how many times I get pulled away from the light and find myself lost in places I should not be with people I should not see, and I choose to be courageous and travel back to the depths where the past reminds me of both my heartbreaks and demons too, I choose to live this authenticity out. Each time I walk those same familiar paths to heal, to go find that little girl once left behind by harsh hands and harsher words and I help her to remember who she is. I help her to remember the one inside of her that wants nothing but to love and to be loved. I guide her back to the little one inside that still believes in magic, both in the magic of loving one another, and the magic of loving oneself too, lest we forget the magic of transmuting the pain and aches of this life and choosing to step into the light each time anyway. Many times a day I am given a choice, each day I fight for myself and I choose to step into my truest self and show up just as I am, just exactly as I was meant to be. I intend for my life to be filled day in and day out by these moments, every moment that offers me the chance to be brave and to be true to my heart. I choose to show up just as I am these days no matter how many times I was told I was too much or not enough, I show up just as I am, shoulders down and back, dreams big, smile bigger, honouring me for who I am in my totality. On the days that the dark comes to wreak havoc, I hold myself and remind her that she has a choice, and the bravest thing she could ever do is to choose the light anyway. So my great story of triumph over trial and tribulation begins where my story once began many moons ago and is made up of every single day, every interaction and opportunity to live in my truth, and continuously, time and time again, come home to myself.
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2021
This year, I’m going to fall in love with myself. I’m going to let the wind blow me back home, to the land that my ancestors walked on. This year, I’m coming home to myself. I’m taking everything I’ve learnt, all the pain and suffering and I am bringing it with me through a rebirth. I am going to put out the fires that I MYSELF started, I’m going to rebuild what was lost to the smoke. I am going to hold my own hand and remember to find the little girl inside of me who is still back turned, facing the wall in an infinite timeout. I am going to call her back into the room and I am going to hold her for as many minutes as she was forsaken. And for every minute that she was silenced, that’s how many times we will scream. For every harsh hand laid on her soft cheek, we’re going to buy a plate and boulder it into a wall. I am going to spend the year raising her, raising myself, from womb. From rebirth. I am spending this year teaching the little girl inside of me that roaring is so much more powerful than silence, I’m reminding her of this for the days she feels like folding in on herself. I am reminding her of this for the days that they make her feel like her absence, is the only way to their acknowledgment. I am spending it reminding her that it was the screaming and crying when she came out, that told them of the life ringing through her little bones. Healthy. Present. Becoming. I am going to let her put out the fire and then im going to set it again. This time, I’m gonna let her put it out, so she knows that she can. So she knows that sometimes you do have to burn again, but only to remember that you already know how to put the fire out. I’m gonna teach that little girl, that the darkness is not be feared. I will remind her, baby, we are forces of nature. We were never meant to sit down and be quiet. We are whole. Both the darkness and the light. One worth nothing without the other. We are whole. And this year, we are not afraid of the dark. This year I’m learning how to wipe my own tears. I’m learning what it is to mother the child, that it was my duty to love. I am teaching her that the fault was not her own. That sometimes in life, you will be the hero and other times, you will be the villain in someone else’s story. But that should be a testament to your growth and never reassurance of your faults baby. “Baby” I will tell her, don’t spend your time searching for the wrong things you’ve done. Baby, lift up your head. Walk strong, these faults will trip you if you let them. I will spend the year reminding her, darling, there is a whole world out there waiting to kiss you with its beauty. The people in it will try to tell you where to look, what you have a right to know and more-over, what you have a right to question. They will try to tell you the rules of ways of this world and how you must fit yourself inside of that mold. But I will spend the year saying, baby, burst the mold. You were never meant to conform into the box, don’t you see, you’re the air all around the box. You are the very ground underneath the box. That kind of space must be held, you must continue to DARE to take it up. You must refuse to shrink yourself into that box. Remember, you have to fall in love with yourself. YOU, make your own mold. Speak your own truth. Remember no matter how many times they tell you that your choices are sins, you were never given the world just for you to choose to sit in the box. You were never given that whole heart of yours, that beats so heavy, just for them to tell you that there are people and places that you may not use it. So baby, all of their boxes, question it all. Question all of the truths they tell you, remember you must do so with a love and desire to understand. But do not conform to them, do not continue to break and bend and squeeze into anything, unless you are conforming to fit into your own hips baby. Do not let them guideline and rulebook what makes you worthy of this worlds grace, from what does not. Love-being, the cosmos were not weaving the creation of you, timing every single alignment under the stars, to expect you to live in THEIR truth. Remember darling, you know how to find your way home to yourself. Remember, question everything they tell you. Find your own truth. Find your fires, put them out. Some days you will have to burn all over again, to be able to re-trace your steps back to the water. On these days, know that you are even closer to the miracles. Know that on these days, the ones of burning, you will feel so far gone, but know that you have never been so close to truth. These days, you’ll find yourself floating among, but know that on these days of darkness, though you will cry, it will be stars falling from your eyes, and I will hold you. I will hold you and remind you of the galaxy in the universe of your own soul, the magic of your strong little heart. This year I will teach you that you don’t have to believe what they tell you, or what I tell you. This year, you will find your own answers, make your own secrets. It’s all apart of the process. My dear girl, even the mighty phoenix cannot rise from the flames without smoke. I will teach you that the smoke is not to be feared. The darkness, it will not take you, you don’t need to let it. It only pulls you so hard, because the dark is always searching for the light to snuff it out. No, no longer. You snuff out the darkness, you burst through the smoke sun ablazing, blinding their eyes. You DARE to take up space, to expand. Don’t ever apologize for taking up space, for holding space. Fill the space with love, fill the space with you and when they cover their eyes and turn their heads away from you, look up and try to stare straight into the sun, remember this is what happens when they look at you. Some people will have to turn their heads, to cover their eyes because some people will not be able to handle the power you portray. Within you both the light and the dark. The light will always win though, I will help you to make sure it doesn’t go out again. Darling, this year, we’re gonna pick a direction and drive into it. We’re gonna ride the sun to tomorrow we're gonna let our souls guide us. We’re gonna let the wind carry us, the water heal us, and the ground hold us. This year, baby, I’m taking you to watch early skies burst into pinks and oranges. This year, we will let the sky show us of our worth by the way it graces us each morning with the sight of its first breaths, the way it reminds us from where we came from. But baby, this year, we’re also gonna go back to watch the sunsets, so you not only know how to watch the beauty of this life unravel before you, but also, so you know how to let it go when it’s time to leave has come. I’m gonna teach you that when it’s time to let it go, you don’t have to undo yourself to search for the part of you that pointed them in the other direction. Baby, this year, I will teach you that some hands stretch wide, palms up, waiting to take all you have to offer, but please don’t give them all the magic in your little fists. Don’t worry about which way their hands point. Put your soft little hands on your own cheeks, look in the mirror and point at yourself. Follow that direction. Follow yourself back home. This year, baby, we will learn how to scream and not apologize for it. We will stomp our feet in our purity, our innocence, our sandstorms and we will scream. We’re gonna throw the biggest tantrums, we’re gonna break everything in our midst. But remember baby, you are a sorcerer. You are both the beauty and the beast. Shine your light, know that sometimes that light will come from the flames, no matter, it will bring warmth once again. And together, we will sweep up the broken glass, put the cupboards back together and patch the holes in the walls. This year, baby, we are going to become,
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