The Stories That Stand Between Us & Belonging

The quiet truth: I’m a lot to handle. 

I’m smart.

I’m loud.

I’m beautiful.

I’m curvy.

I’m wildly ambitious.

I love like it’s my full-time job, which, it sort of is.

I am a lot to handle. 

I don’t hold back.

I thrive in melodrama.

I have a thing about other people living up to their potential.

I am opinionated.

I’m passionate.

I move quickly. I move slowly. I refuse external timelines.

For the majority of my life, I told myself a story :: You are too much. You are overwhelming. You are unlovable unless you tamp it down, cover it up, and play nice.

But, I could never cover myself up adequately.

I would try – desperately zipping it up and glossing it over. I lived in fear of the moment when it spilled out over the edges, touching everything around me, and bubbling up out of my core. The moments when my beautiful, wild nature would betray me by escaping her carefully curated prison.

I would try, but even when I was surrounded by a crowd, I was restless.

I would try, but even when I was in my partner’s loving arms, I was lonely.

I would try, but keeping myself small and palatable was taking all of my energy.

Keeping myself small was consuming me.

Instead of fitting in or magically becoming extra lovable, I was more alone and distraught than ever. I had the feeling that I was surrounded by people who wouldn’t love me if they really knew me. I told myself that I had to keep it up, otherwise I would be alone forever.

I am a lot to handle, but that doesn’t mean that I am too much.

I simply am a person – in all of my imperfect and powerful a-lot-ness.  

If I am too much for someone, that is their business completely, and not mine.

Not everyone needs to love me. And yes, this is a lesson that still hits me directly in the gut, but one that I believe in fiercely. 

My business it to show up, exactly as I am, and transmit myself openly and authentically.

My business is to remain in integrity with myself by being who I am, and not working double time to pretend that I am someone else.

My business is to provide myself with opportunities to be witnessed and loved for exactly who I am.

As we are moving about in the world, we have no control over how we are received by others. It is our greatest task to bravely believe in ourselves enough to keep shining, even when we meet resistance.

It is our task to show up as we are – brazen and shining.

The truth: I am a lot to handle.

And I am learning to love myself this way.