I AM LIGHT

I am not the things my family did, I am not the voices in my head, I am not the pieces of the brokenness inside, I am light… I’m not the mistakes that I have made or any of the things that caused me pain, I am not the pieces of the dream I left behind, I am light…

This was going to be a post titled REVOLUTION. It was going to be a story about how a million years ago, in my very early 20’s, I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I was going to tell you that New Orleans is the best place in the world to people watch. That there were so many beautifully crazy individuals around me at any given time and everything about them seemed so free. How I remember, very clearly, seeing a group of women walking around Bourbon Street, selling stickers that said “STOP BITCHING, START A REVOLUTION” and how I immediately bought one and placed it across the back of my denim jacket. That I didn’t even get to keep that sticker for more than a couple of hours, but having it on my back for however long (I’ll never really know), made a lasting impression on me. That since that night in New Orleans there have been multiple times in my life that I think to myself “STOP BITCHING, START A REVOLUTION”. I wanted to tell you that those words continuously resonate with me and that they should resonate with you as well. And then I told my BFF about this post and this mantra of power. And since my birthday is coming up, she wanted to see if she could find me a bumper sticker like the one I bought that night. So she went to the Google and texted me within minutes that the group of women selling those stickers were part of a sex cult that has since been disbanded. This is why we can’t have nice fucking things.

Back in 2004 I had a flip phone and the internet wasn’t the goddamn breeding ground for all the gross things that it is now. I’m pretty sure we were still paying $20 a month for AOL and I might have just created a Yahoo email address because people were like “AOL is so done”. So I didn’t get to preemptively check with my good friend Google to see that this group of women was actually part of a sex cult and I most definitely wouldn’t have bought the sticker in that moment. I would have scurried away and been like “immediately NO”. But here I am, a million years later, learning that this one saying that has actually shaped part of my adult life was preached by a group of malcontents who had no idea what the fuck they were doing with their lives. I mean, I get it.

But dammit, I am not going to let this bring me down. I’m going to laugh my ass off and figure out how to flip this into something amazing. I have a fire in me that really wants to blaze. Fire is light. I am light. And I am here to tell you that fear, anxiety and adult responsibilities have manged to douse that fire, that light, before it ever got that chance to blaze brightly. It was all just a pile of delusions of grandeur that I never had time to sort through because more shit just kept making it’s way to the top of the pile. It was disheartening and disappointing and I will not allow that fire to be extinguished before it has the chance to make an actual change.

I spend my life trying to do the right thing, always. I falter, all the damn time. And it’s not because of lack of awareness. It’s because different people want and expect different things. I am hyper aware of people’s feelings and vibes but just because I’m aware of those things doesn’t mean I know what that person needs from me. And so it’s difficult to figure out if you’re actually doing the right thing. The idea is to not do the wrong thing, but you really never know. What you perceive as right, the other might perceive as wrong. And this is the world we live in. We live and we learn, every single day.

I struggle a lot with feeling bad about things I really shouldn’t feel bad about. Feeling shame about things that I shouldn’t feel shameful about. I have found that there is someone who is always ready to knock you down a peg, especially when you’re feeling joy. I have found that at some of the proudest moments in my life there was someone who felt the need to rip the good feeling right out of my hands. Whether it was by outright embarrassing me or throwing their own spin on how it wasn’t a big deal and something even better was happening to them. People do this all the time. And it has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them. Everyone knows better than you.

I’m here to tell you that life doesn’t have to be that way. That I’ve done so much work on myself in the last year plus that I can confidently tell you if you don’t want that kind of negative shit in your life, you don’t have to deal with it. Don’t be a dick about it. There’s a nice way to bow out. I chose bowing out quietly and/or politely. I’m telling you this because you need to hear it. You don’t have to conform to the bullshit that is in front of you. I’m not doing it anymore. I talk shit out with my husband and besties and try my best NOT to create unnecessary drama because it’s fucking exhausting.

It took me a long time to realize that my internal revolution is not this giant thing that happens all at once. It has been all of these small steps that have helped me try my damnedest to rise above the bullshit and realize that I have been doing it this whole time. It dawned on me the other day that I have no desire to be included in shit where I don’t fit. It was this really weird awakening and I felt so incredibly light. Like a little bit of weight was lifted off of my shoulders.

You are only as good as the last thing you did. Ain’t that a bitch? You can give people the world and the one time you decide to be a little selfish, you’re a piece of shit. You’re done. What the fuck is that about? Here I am, doing all the stuff for everyone, giving them my time and energy, and I do ONE THING and I’m cancelled? Guess what? That’s fine. I don’t need that kind of nonsense in my life. I have given so much of my time and energy to so many people who I thought would be in my life forever and that was not the case. And THAT’S OK. People grow, people change, people get hurt and can’t move passed the issues, people continue to live their lives without you and all of it is a natural part of life. If they were meant to still be in your life they would be. And you just have to believe and accept that.

Every day I’m growing. It took me a long time to realize it but I’m really glad that I finally did. Most of the time I feel stuck in my own head but even that is changing. There is so much more important shit going on in the world right now that I have decided to stop preoccupying myself with shit that I can’t control and start concentrating on the things that I can. I’m not going to tell you that life is too short because that’s not something I’m familiar with. What I can tell you is that you matter and you are important. And if that means letting go of the shit that hurts you or doesn’t help you grow, then that’s what you need to do.

You are light. You are enough.

This post took a long time to write, but here it is. And if it resonates with you, then that’s enough for me…

I am a star, a piece of it all, I am light…

Song name: I AM LIGHT/ Artist: India.Arie / Year: 2013