Self Reflection
Our stories are ours. To share or to hold. Remember our stories never end, so if you aren't okay right now - it isn't the end.
I feel like maybe I should be embarrassed, to be drowning so spectacularly. But I am not drowning underwater. I am drowning in every word I have left unsaid, all the things I should have said. Like help me and please look at me. All the words I could have said, to not be where I am now. All the words that could have saved me, now lodged in my throat, as a reminder that I have never put myself first. That I never really learned how to. So I lay on my bed, breathless, heavy. Years of trauma caused by me, my own unwillingness to stand up for myself, drowning. Somedays I do try to swim. I want to take a breath at the surface, to finally tell all of my stories, with all those precious words. But I cannot move, not to sit up, not to do homework, not even to speak. So with an anchor on my chest, I sink. ... To sink is to hit sea bottom. It is only a visit, once I learned I can drop my anchor. This wild notion that I am at fault for every wrong thing, and that I am constantly a victim. From there, I rose, and everyday I rise. Maybe tired and maybe hungry. But I have grown and been taught so much. My voice is mine, and I no longer allow it to be silenced. I lean on my people when the water gets choppy, and never do I feel I am on the precipice of going under. The pain, the hurt, those are still present. But they are now joined with a different perspective. I was never drowning - I was always fighting. Fighting to stay and fighting for every day. It was painful and still is, but it is so much better. My life was always mine, and it is better after having realized, I can change it.