The Truth of Five
So many days…so many nights…all that was familiar was God and my tears.
In truth, I’ve been absent for five plus years and spent the fullness of that time discovering the beauty of who I am as a woman after being lost within an unforgiving cycle of feeling inadequate within the makings of myself. I dimmed the light of my own genius. I neglected the totality of my worth…of my capabilities…of my enormous potential and welcomed the spirit of self-sabotage as my greatest companion. And with that, for over five years, I spiraled, and the weight of an unknown fear paralyzed me within a permanent state of complacency…hesitancy…uncertainty. Yearning to hide myself and my talents from all outside sources, all the while knowing that I am deserving. More than five years of sleeping on myself and allowing all that I have to offer lie dormant within my broken heart. Being rejected. Being denied. Being forgotten. Being counted out. Being misunderstood. But in the weight of my breaking, I carried a knowing that where I existed was the exact place where most people decide to forget…forget about the very things that once made life worth living. Instead of succumbing to my own forgetfulness, I forced myself to remember, and the remembrance gave me strength.
So many days…so many nights…all that was familiar was God and my tears.
In truth, embracing the demise of your current self is traumatizing. To endure the pain of shedding yourself of all you’ve ever been because that version of you has become stunted and no longer holds the capacity to carry the profound weight of your purpose. And it is only because I love myself, that I became acquainted with and sorted through the ugliness of my own shit. It is because I love myself that I allowed all of me to become undone…allowed the breaking to ensue. I embraced the fall, and while falling, I had to face the roots of my traumas, ended friendships, chose estrangement, leaned into the beauty of self-preservation because in truth, at the end of the day, I am all that I have. I was unable to write and create while falling because the woman who carried the writer possessed a soul that ran on emptiness. Loving myself enough to heal myself…loving myself enough to strive for self-improvement. Choosing to forgive myself for all I’ve ever done and all that I allowed to be done to me while holding an unmoving grace for all I’ve ever been. Yes, embracing the demise of my past self, left me with a fervent aching.
So many days…so many nights…all that was familiar was God and my tears.
In truth, this journey of five has not been rooted in finding my way back to the life I once lived or to the woman I once was because she no longer exists...that life no longer exists. The foundation of my growth is not about finding my way back to her, it’s about honoring her for carrying me thus far and equipping me with the strength and the nerve to own the full makings of myself and move forward, but this time with a deeper wisdom and appreciation for life and for self. I am not rebuilding or rediscovering a damn thing. I am building and discovering from where I stand right here…right now.
So many days…so many nights…all that was familiar was God and my tears.
In truth, it took years to convince myself that I am worthy of pure friendship, sisterhood, community, and love. Imposter Syndrome and holding a fear of taking up space are daily battles for me when these feelings never held presence in the past. I am grateful to have people in my life who see and love the fullness of who I am. Today, I am whole because I know the truth of God, and because I know the truth of God, I know the truth of myself, can see myself. Today, I am ready to write, ready to thrive, ready to chase after and invest in the things that bring me both comfort and freedom, ready to share who I am…
But there were so many days…so many nights…all that was familiar was God and my tears.