When I started this journey of "reinvention" someone very close to my heart 'told' me that I would need to be strong. That person (or his/her essence) was right. I 'replied' that I was okay with that, I could do it, I would do it. At the time I wasn't sure how I was going to be tested, what obstacles I would need to overcome, what truths I would need to face, and what I would need to let go of in order to gain. But this person had faith that I could and has been an encouraging source of wisdom, even in past words spoken about his/her own artistic journey. The gist of those words is that you can't worry about fulfilling the truths of other people; you have to choose your own.
I'm good at hiding my truth. My entire life I've stuffed it down into the pit of my stomach. And there it has churned, some of it slowly evaporating--the other parts ready to erupt, at any given moment, like a dormant volcano brought back to life.
I wish I could tell you what my truth is; all its pieces. But the thing is, I don't even know. Some of those pieces I've rediscovered. Some of them are hidden even from me. Who wants to dwell in darkness and despair? I worry about it--the darkness. The way it encroaches when you're not looking or not paying attention to anything but the sunlight. It used to frighten me at night so I'd turn up the radio, shivering underneath a pile of blankets in 80 degree heat. My truth could've been so simple, but it wasn't.
I've gotten so close to running away, so many times. Each time I've failed to do it because the path didn't exist yet and I would be alone. At first I didn't want to disappoint her. She was my mother. And she was supposed to love me. But it never felt like she did. So I looked for it in a place I shouldn't have. Behind a desk full of books. A piece of paper. A pencil. An eraser. A somebody who would say you're good enough. Gold stars for doing exactly as I asked.
But that path is just a line of shiny stickers that doesn't amount to much, really. And some things are better left to the heart, dreams, and open possibilities than definitions, thinking, and following the rules of a well-intentioned elite consensus. Surrender. It's not an easy choice. And its scary and it doesn't make sense at first. But somehow the pieces already know how they're going to connect. And you would miss the joy and the mystery of the journey if you didn't allow yourself to discover it as it unfolds.
The changes that we end up making aren't always the ones that we first thought we would. But they're the ones that we need to make the most--the paths that we need to abandon as we break ground on something new and unseen, yet familiar and illuminating. Something forgotten that we once buried beneath sand and have now returned to dig up so that we can finally become free.
