Shadow Dancer

I've lived a pretty rough life for a good portion of the time I've been alive. At the time I didn't realize exactly what I was getting into.
I've come a long way from who I was 15 years ago. I started out so naive, with no real world knowledge or experience because of how secluded and indoctrinated I was raised. So when my problems started after I moved out of my parents at 18, I really had no idea what I was doing, or that the choices I would make would ultimately destroy my life in many ways. Before I even understood the problem, the first domino had already fallen and started a chain reaction that would slowly turn my life upside down.

I've spent years paying for my mistakes and poor choices in varying ways. Which has led me on a pretty intense journey of self-discovery, and learning self-forgiveness. I was a borderline atheist about 6 years ago, I felt there was nothing bigger than me. But some events happened that opened my mind to spirituality, I choose to leave religion out of it. I dealt with some really dark times, some people refer to it as the dark night of the soul. It was a critical point in my life, I was at a crossroads and the options were to change or die. So spirituality coming into my life when it did helped me harness introspection and learning to question my thought process. I've since made it somewhere I never thought I would.

Don't get me wrong, the struggle has still been real. It hasn't been all unicorns and rainbows. Internally this has been the biggest battle of wills. Me vs. the old version of myself. There have been multiple times where I feel like I'm really progressing, and then suddenly I find myself stuck and stagnant. My depression kicks in, and I lose the motivation I had built up. It has halted my progress at times because I fall back into old thinking patterns, and I let the negative thoughts take over my mind, so then I have to fight my way back out of them and into the healthy ones I am creating for myself. It's been a process.

Even when I'm not in that pit of depression, I still have daily struggles. The biggest one I'm working on is me losing my daughter's, I think of them every day. It hurts, missing their childhood. And I have a hard time forgiving this one because my choices put me from Mother (which I loved being) to a failure without a purpose. My immediate impulse after losing them was to fall back into the drugs and give up on life, that's how I had always handled pain before, and this was another level. But I can't, because I still have a chance to try and fix some of it. Once my girls are adults, they have the choice to reach out to me, and if I get that chance, I refuse to let them down again. This gave me purpose, and regardless if they reach out or not, I am going to be someone they will be proud of. Not just for them, but for me.

I had a kind of extreme realization that ended up changing my perception of myself not long ago, and I'm gonna be honest, it is really uncomfortable writing this out. But I really feel the need to share this in this challenge because it is an initiation of sorts, it is going to help push me to integrate this new self awareness I mentioned. The timing of what's happening in my life, and this particular challenge coming up, was a clear sign that I couldn't pass, it's an opportunity for significant growth.

Going back to what I said about paying for my choices, one of the consequences of my addiction was poor overall health. Over the years most of my teeth have been slowly falling apart. It has been a very sensitive thing, as my appearance has always been important to me. I was fortunate because my front teeth stayed intact, but if I smiled you could see the damage with other teeth. It affected me enough that I haven't smiled with my mouth open for years. It's been forever since I've seen a picture of myself smiling naturally, I'm not even sure that the muscles in my mouth would know how to anymore, this has been my main issue with self-confidence.

I wasn't in a place to get them fixed until recently. This situation is what ended up triggering this new opportunity for healing and growth. I was told that because it had been so many years that this had been slowly progressing, even though my front top teeth were good I was still going to have to have them removed, because I couldn't have partials on top. The only thing I could do was say I understood and accepted that this is where I'm at, and honestly I just wanted it done so I could smile a real smile again. Maybe it shouldn't bother me so much, but it does. I have some friends and co-workers with issues with their teeth, and I don't look at them differently, they are just people to me. But when it comes to myself I feel so insecure and worry about being judged. Because sadly there are people who will judge you for something like that, and I don't want my current self to be judged on who I was in my past. But through this process I also realized the deeper part is that I am actually just really judging myself. It's been a constant reminder of my past.

Starting the process I was nervous, but also very eager to finally be able to take care of it. During the extraction I just kept hearing the crunching and cracking noises, at one point I felt the deep tidal wave of emotion wash over me and I began to cry. I had this overwhelming awareness of how far I let the addiction take me, and the impact of the damage I inflicted on myself sunk in with a different kind of sadness. All I could think was how heartbreaking it was that I was ever in that low of a place. Putting myself through what I did for so long because in my mind it was easier than dealing with what was really hurting inside. It was so sad knowing I was in such a dark place, and it hurt even more remembering that I believed I deserved it. Sitting there I had a compassion for that version of myself that I had never had before. Like she was someone I just wanted to hug and say “You're gonna make it through this.” It was a good release, but didn't last long.

I knew the time during the healing would be difficult for me, the dentist told me it could be up to 3 months before it was all finished. What that really meant didn't fully sink in right away. When I got home and had my first look at myself with no upper teeth the insecurities started flooding in. I started panicking about how I was going to make it through this time without being completely embarrassed. It was hard enough for me while I still had two good front teeth, so how was I going to deal with being toothless up top? It created so much anxiety in me that it was affecting my mood, and I was starting to feel depressed. I ended up just using a face mask any time I was around people, they knew what was going on, but I couldn't let them see. It's summer and the mask didn't have very good ventilation, so I just ended up cutting the nose part off as a solution. I couldn't handle the thought of trying to talk to someone and seeing their eyes wander down to my mouth mid conversation, I'd kill over right there. So I kept wearing it.

My birthday was coming up and I had pre-planned to go to a hot spring which had a beautiful hike. Some family and friends were going to come and we were planning on just camping out overnight and enjoying nature. I was excited, but I expressed to my sister that I didn't care about wearing a mask the whole time we were hiking in the heat. She kept telling me that I didn't need to be wearing one at all. I didn't agree.

Right before the trip I had another moment on the train, there was a trans woman sitting near me, it was clear she was born a male but was in transition. At her stop, she was exiting, and a woman getting on asking if she was transgender. She said yes and the lady boarding yelled that she was disgusting, the transwoman smiled quietly and walked away. Seeing how she reacted really struck me. Who knows how she was filling inside, I wondered if it matched the outside because it felt like it did with her taking it with such grace not reacting.

Seeing that made me realize how truly courageous transgender people are. I'm over here freaking about people judging my teeth, so I’m hiding behind a mask. But these incredible and brave people choose to be authentic and unapologetic, no matter who is watching. It made me realize my own insecurity felt so small and quite honestly ridiculous. It forced me to really take a look at why I was struggling so badly with my own image.

We made it to the camping ground and had a wonderful day, night time came which was the part I was looking forward to most. I live in a city so I don't see many stars, but I love to stargaze and it is such a beautiful spot because there are so many. So I laid in my tent, thinking about what happened on the train and really trying to understand my issue. I was admiring the contrast in the sky at the same time between the darkness and the stars, and something about that made me think of the contrast between the good parts of myself and my shadow. I've always feared the shadow part of myself. I believed that I was supposed to deny those darker aspects as a part of who I am. But staring up at that sky I realized that without all of that darkness, we wouldn't be able to experience the light and beauty of the stars.

I realized that I shouldn't fear my shadow, but that I should embrace it as a part of who I am because if I choose to understand it, I can see it's here to show me what wounds I'm still carrying and give me the awareness so that I can start to heal them. It lets me know when there is a problem that I need to be paying attention to. It had a role in my life for such a long time, but I let it control me. That won't serve me anymore, so forcing me to feel all that shame about my teeth has pushed me to realize I'm not focused on the right things. I need to acknowledge my accomplishments, be proud of who I am right now, and embrace this phase as a stepping stone into my journey and new life. How I look to other people should never take this much of a toll on my mental health. This is just another battle scar I picked up along the way, and the people meant to be in my life will not treat me differently because of it. So I have since put the mask away, and survived the few eye drops I've received. I'll be happy when this chapter closes and my new one begins. Until then, I'm just going to be me, dancing with my shadow.