hi,
i’m glad you’re here.
when i was little my heart was always open. i was wide-eyed and kind, quicker to sweetness than sarcasm, saw the romance in everything, believed everyone was kind.
lately, i’ve been thinking about that little girl. wondering who i am, really. when you strip me down to my core, what’s left there? is it her? and, where did she go?
i was bullied a lot when i was younger. othered for a lot of reasons that are both trivial and important in their own ways.
i spent entire recess periods sitting on the cement of the playground writing into a notebook, crafting song lyrics and grandiose love stories about romance that i hadn’t tasted yet. i sang a bette midler song in a floor length purple gown and dedicated it to my nana. showed up to school in a black formal dress for an afternoon dance. sent a handwritten note asking my crush to dance with me. fear at my feet, love lining my eyes.
i’ve been siting here for a while trying to pinpoint when my heart shut. did i inch the door closed slowly? or did i slam it shut?
somewhere along the way, i decided i was tired of sitting on the outside. i wanted to be in the center of the fun, i wanted friends and attention from boys and a life that was constantly flashing in front of me on my TV screen.
i was sick of being the butt of the joke. so i learned to fit in, molded myself into something that was more palatable. figured out how to toughen up, how to curate a lens of apathy, how to fight back instead of feel.
but where did that get me, exactly?
now, i’m almost 30, and i find myself clawing at that door. trying to shake off the rust that keeps it closed. i am reaching for that girl, the person i always was, beneath it all.
i remember hearing brene brown talk about how we spend the beginning of our lives building up armor and the second half of our lives figuring out how to tear it down.
so how do you teach yourself it’s safe, again, to tear down the wall?
my friends are starting to have kids and i can’t help but look at them and wonder who they’re gonna be, and how, for them to turn into anything other than who they already are, would break our hearts. how there is no one, nothing, better for them to be than themselves.
but, inevitably, we all take some detours from that self. we walk a lot of roads and hopefully ones of them leads us back home.
now, i find myself gravitating towards the things i did when i was less weighed down by what i thought i needed to be. i want to sit in a park writing in my journal. i want to get dressed up and sing at the top of my lungs. i want to love and be loved and lead with my heart.
that me is who i think i really am. and, now, it’s just a matter of working my way back to her.
i keep a picture of my younger self on the desk in my home office. it’s a reminder to be kinder, to myself and everyone around me. but it’s also a homage to that girl, that version of myself.
i want to thank her for knowing when to put up the armor. for protecting us from the pain of not quite fitting in. for giving me the tools i needed to withstand it all.
but, mostly, i want to show her how the wounds healed over. how it’s safe to reach for the soft again. to teach her that the armor we create to keep the pain away also keeps the depths of our joy at bay. to let her know that i’m finding my way back to her, day by day.
this week, instead of sharing my nails and a poem, I want to share one of my most recent tattoos.
it’s a reminder, for me, that our smaller selves are always there, always reaching for connection, even when it might be easier to just turn away.
it’s inspired by a sculpture: Love by Ukrainian artist Alexander Milov. it was famously featured at burning man in 2015. you can read more about his inspiration here - the description is poetry in itself.
until next time, friends.