On returning to yourself

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The woman I’m meant to be is simply an evolution of the woman I’ve always been.

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My family has always encouraged me since I was a girl. Every endeavor I found myself interested in, my immediate and distant family and friends would cross county and state lines to demonstrate their support. There’s very little that I’ve ever sought after that anyone close to me actively discouraged me from doing. I was affirmed. I was celebrated. I was loved as I was and was offered an enormous amount of space to explore my interests and who I was as a person. I am grateful for that to have been my experience.

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But it was only once I got older that the discouragement, the fear got louder. It began to matter less that the people who knew and loved me believed in me, and more that I didn't find that same encouragement in the larger world around me. But I can’t blame it on society and media, because at the end of the day it was no one’s voice but my own that threatened to undo an entire childhood’s worth of hard-fought self-confidence.

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The voice wasn’t constant, and it certainly wasn’t particularly loud. But it was there, growing more familiar as the years went on persistently poking holes in the perception I had of myself and the world. Asking if I was indeed enough, or if being different from the people around me meant that I was wrong or bad or behind or hopeless. I began questioning things about who I was that, as a child or teen, I would’ve never second-guessed.

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And so it is now my task, the importance of which has become abundantly clear to me this year, to understand that the path to becoming the woman God created me to be can most easily be found in understanding who I always was. My task is to take a closer look at the seeds that were planted and cultivated throughout my youth and to recommit to them. To water my garden without fear or hesitation.

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Becoming a brave woman today means returning to the brave girl I was.

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A part of me has always known this, honestly. This whole blog exists because when I found myself without an outlet at a pointedly difficult time in my life, I returned to my first love: writing.

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But I think what’s made it difficult sometimes is the idea that the person I’m returning to (the interests, the values, the convictions, the passions, the “weird” bits of me, the things that made me me) were somehow not enough or maybe even too much. But what confidence looks like for me these days is being really unapologetic about all of that. Refusing to shrink or to dilute or to redact any part of who I am to appeal to or appease anyone including the small but persistent voice that tells me I must.

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I will not. I cannot afford to. If it is authenticity I seek, truth I seek, fullness that I seek, then I must remain committed to, above all things, being who I am and growing into who I’m supposed to be.

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For surely, if I focus my efforts on loving God, loving others, and being exactly who I’m supposed to be, then I cannot fail. Surely, if I am where He wants me to be, doing what He’s called me to do, then I will be provided for, my path will be made clear, and I will succeed no matter what it looks like or what it feels like in the moment. But the moment I start trying to pretend or fabricate or falsify who I am and how I move because I’m scared to be myself, I can only expect confusion, distress, and strife.

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I will say, the last few months of being really intentional about returning to myself have not necessarily been comfortable, but friend have I been filled with peace. Ever since I got back from Helsinki and really committed to taking the pressure off, I’ve mostly been at peace ever since. A sense of being settled and, well, confident. I know I’m in the right place, doing the right thing, with the right people, right now. I know it. I feel it in my bones to be true. I don’t desire more, I just desire more of the same.

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I’m filled with joy and peace and love and gratitude and it is because God has been gracious to me. I stopped trying to make other people happy and focused on living, learning, laughing, and loving, even when it’s hard or scary or whatever.

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I’m so grateful for this life I get to live, y’all fr. I think my younger self would think the life I lead right now is so cool and funky and she’d be so proud and I think that’s enough. Because it is!!!!! It is enough.

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Anyway if you’re looking for me, I’m on the way back to myself. This isn’t a rebrand, darlin, this is a return. I’m glad to be here.

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Thalia, 27, just wants to run her race well.

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