Where Were You a Year Ago?

In order to be fully present where you are, you must accept where you have been. 

This week, someone near and dear to me asked me a question for which I immediately felt grateful, yet I recognized that it would provoke a profound level of introspection. The question was: “Where were you a year ago?”

While the question derived from a lighter conversation (and likely was not designed to grant me permission to create a mountain out of a molehill), I felt myself transporting back to the position I was in a calendar year ago: at a fork in the road, with the ground shifting beneath me with greater force every passing second until I firmly placed one decisive foot in either direction. 

The presentation of the decision before me was clear - I had to face what I had thrown all my weight behind avoiding: trauma. Events stemming from May 4, 2018 all the way back to my gaslit childhood demanded an acknowledgment as powerful as the events themselves. My Herculean efforts to outpace and outthink the truth were proving to be fruitless for the first time. Defining the path forward was not optional.

My options were assigned vs. self-selected, yet they were crystal clear: Claim the war as my own and suit up for the fight, or flee from the scene and hope for the best with the scraps of whatever would be left of me.

A year ago, I didn’t have a “warrior” badge wrapped around my wrist. A year ago, I never would have gone public with my ups and downs. A year ago, I wouldn’t have had the courage required to sit with the broken pieces and integrate them into this beautiful, soulful experience that is the human condition.  A year ago, I was relentlessly pursuing light without learning to appreciate darkness.

Today, I lean on my carefully curated sacred friendships and grow from the infinite heart space of (insert friends) (to name a few). I whole-body understand that darkness grants light its power to illuminate by sheer juxtaposition. My darkness ignites this beaming tower within me with the light I hope he sees in me -  light that enables me to hold space for others and bear witness to their own  trauma transmutations; light that beams in more ways than one and literally bolsters this body I inhabit and cherish and now fight so hard to protect.

I am who I am today because of the decision I made a year ago. This wasn’t the war I chose but it continues to be the war I refuse to lose. This wasn’t my immediate response to his question, but it is the most truthful answer I could give.