March 2022

I’ve been trying to 'fix' myself, when I should have just been focused on growing.

Saying fix implies that something was broken to begin with. And I don’t think I’ve ever been broken. I’ve been spun around, thrown out of proverbial windows, and even died and came back to the real world. But I never broke. I learned. I learned good things and I learned bad things. I learned how to cope and then I learned that there were better ways to cope. I learned I was strong over and over again. As if it’s just the way I was all along, but I wasn’t convinced.

I’ve always seen my life as a series of things that happened that led me to where and who I am today. But what if life was just trying to tell me I was strong, and I wouldn’t believe it. So it threw something else my way as if to give me another lesson. You’re strong, see? But I didn’t see, not really. I doubted myself constantly. I thought I’d started out weak and by now I was stronger. But no: I started out strong and now I’m strongest. The strongest I’ve ever been, even though what being strong means has changed over the years.

Somehow, this whole time, it was already in me, but I was spending my time trying to prove it to myself. I’ve learned and I’ve grown and I’m growing up. But strong? It’s always been there. I was born a pillar. And here I thought I was a brick looking for other bricks to build myself into a wall one day. Here I was, adding on and adding on, getting taller and taller, not realizing that I could already see over the treetops to begin with. And now I’m thicker and I’m taller than ever. And recently, I’ve started chipping away at some of it, letting some of the weight go. Something’s taking shape; edges are softening; curves are appearing. And it feels good.

25 years later, I’m writing this and realizing that—fuck—when they said 'The only thing standing in your way is you', maybe they were right. Nothing was ever broken. Nothing ever had to be fixed. And life, the universe, or whatever you want to call it, has been trying to show me, over and over again. It keeps saying, ‘You’ve got this’, and I keep saying ‘Thank god that happened, or I wouldn't be prepared for the next thing.’ But that wasn’t it. So it sent me something else. And something else. And something else. I spent my life wondering what that thing was—that thing that if I solved or fixed or unbroke, would heal me. Make me better. Make me whole. Make me who I’m supposed to be.

Life wasn’t trying to prove to me I could become strong.

Life was trying to show me how strong I always was. Life was trying to show me that it is part of my fabric, and always will be.

What if things didn’t happen so I could somehow become Herculean in strength. Things happened because I didn’t understand that I. Already. Was. So they kept coming, and coming, as lessons do when you’re not listening.

I started out March in a rut. Stuck. But so many people sent me the same message over and over, 'you've got this, and we've got you', that it made me stop and think. And I realized the sheer amount of times my surroundings had told me just that recently, and I'd ignored it.

I usually use this platform for introspection, but this time the answer didn't come from within, it came from without. I'm ending March somewhere totally different.