Permission to Speak From the Heart

Five years ago, I landed here.

Five years ago, I began the careful cultivation of this corner of the internet. I put my shoes by the door and I began building this dream from the foundation up.

At the beginning, all I had was desire – to connect, to confess, to overcome. I had the desire for it all to mean something. My little life on this tiny spit of land. My tumultuous relationship with my body. The conversations between friends that I would overhear in the grocery store – I hate my body. I hate my life. I hate my job. 

Five years ago, I began writing here because I had something to say.

I called my site Medicinal Marzipan, believing that the power of words, of stories, could heal us. I built it from scratch with minimal web skills and an open heart.
Five years ago, I gave myself this website as a gift.

I gave myself permission to become here, to unfurl. 

At the time, I had no idea what I was doing, where it was going. I thought that I was destined for a fancy cubicle and a thirty minute commute. I was ready to relax into a life of normalcy and stable expectation.

When I began finding myself in earnest, my hungers took me in a very different direction. 

And during that time, I gave myself permission, again and again and again.

Permission to become.

Permission to change my mind.

Permission to buck conventional wisdom and cultivate something of my own imagining.

Permission to stand in my power fully and embody the life-altering work that I create.

Permission to be unabashedly, unapologetically human.

Permission to miss deadlines, to renegotiate my prerogatives, to say no when I mean no.

Permission to show up, as myself, daily and permission to alter what that looks like at a moment’s notice.

Permission to simply BE after a lifetime of doing and producing.

And with time, this home became a home for many of you as well. You scampered over, sharing your stories and your truths. You emailed me in the middle of the night. You worked with me directly to begin creating something gorgeous of your own.

This home became the home that I had been praying for all along.

Today we celebrate.

Today, we give ourselves permission to BE.

{image by the amazingly talented Ruth Clark}