When I Grow Up
To some end, we all fantasize about the kinds of people we will become. We sow seeds of our wildest dreams and pray for a fruitful harvest, rich and bountiful are the trimmings of our imagination that, if we work hard enough, shall come to pass. That is the belief. The American dream; anything is possible even if improbable.
When I was younger, I used to dream of accepting awards. Practicing humility and gratitude in the face of being honored for my accomplishments. I imagined a home with artifacts of a life fully lived. I dreamed of sunlight filling my home and dancing with the sounds of laughter over a home-cooked meal. The only thing I really ever wanted was love and a reason to gush about it.
I consider each of the moments in my recent life history which have, to some effect, tarnished the idea of my future self. It started with him. A him I just knew was going to be my happily ever after. When he...presented a reality counter to the one so firmly planted in my mind, I lost my center. Looking back, I can recognize that my devastation at the loss of him and our relationship as it was had everything to do with me and very little to do with him. The world he and I had agreed to was now gone, a star in the infinite horizon that just seemed to disappear. And rather than turn my gaze to the billions of other possibilities there available to me, I drowned in grief over the one I lost.
I used to view our relationship renegotiation as a rejection. Similarly, I found it bitter and painful to come upon the milestones planned by Us simply as Me. I didn't know how to celebrate pieces of a puzzle that would never again create a complete picture. We were broken and I felt broken, and that feeling was only exacerbated by the instances of assault and trauma that followed. All unrelated to him, and yet fruit from that same rotting tree of disappointment. What had I done wrong? I was stuck in a mindset that kept me victimized and grasping for relief at any cost. I allowed the pain to consume so much of me, it took numerous months and milligrams of medications before I could be upright and clear again.
On the other side of things, I see each of these events as a vehicle to my liberation. My healing was a journey of looking intimately at my wounds and rewriting the story of their infliction. In the new story, these events did not happen to me, they simply happened. And I, armed with everything in me, survived them. My resolve to still love so fully is survival. The willingness to write so openly about my most tender moments is survival. The lack of shame around sex and sexuality despite being sexually violated is survival. Forgiveness is survival. And never would I have said, in my five year old voice, that when I grow up I want to be a warrior. Yet here I stand.
In my heart, I know I have turned a corner. I dwell so comfortably in my own skin. I have grown so unapologetic in my being. The alignment between my mind body and spirit has become my new North Star and every other goal is simply a byproduct of my congruence with Source. I have surrendered. And it was not a single moment, it was a three year long back alley fight to the death between my soul and my shoulds. Every hurt was a call to address to readjust and realign. I lost my love and I found love in myself. My body was violated and my soul said you are more than this flesh. Forced ascension. My job and my friends and my home, I lost them all asking God how much more I could go without. Just so I could learn to love without attachment. How to be sufficient with only that which I could carry and how to carry only that which I needed.
Losing my future gifted me with the present. And in a full circle moment, I find myself able to step into even the spaces that hurt so much before. I never would have said it then, but if you were to ask me now what I want to be when I grow up? I would tell you myself. And I would tell you that everything I will be, I already am and always was.
Ashe.