All That I Am

I was going to tell the rest of the story -- how Javier finally disappeared from my life and I was free to move on. I was going to write about the years it took me to regain what I lost; about how many times I repeated this pattern of giving myself away for the sake of keeping a guy who wasn't anywhere near good enough for me. 

I was going to reflect on the damage, but I changed my mind. 

I believe there was purpose in telling the story, in sharing it with the world instead of holding it inside the bubble wrap of shame and regret. I believe that going back to those pivotal moments was clarifying for me, and I even believe that reliving the period after we broke up -- those months he spent terrorizing me for what seemed like sport -- was important for me to do, even though I had a hard time with it. I didn't like being in that place of fear again -- a place I had deliberately avoided for a very long time. But allowing myself to do so gave me a new perspective, even as I processed the pain. 

I don't live there anymore. I haven't for a very long time.

I had a deeply transformative experience this weekend that shifted my intention as to how I want to approach the end of this particular project, so instead of sharing anything more about the man who abused me, I am going to examine and celebrate the woman I have become.

I am a woman who knows herself -- smart, sassy, moody, sensitive, empathic, irritable, impatient, funny, uncertain, and sometimes incredibly insecure. I have learned to accept and own all of those aspects of myself, and as I become aware of the many other sides of Nancy, I will welcome them, too. 

I am a woman with a passionate and creative mind, who sees a picture in everyday things, who stops a hundred times along the way (wherever that is) to capture that secret world, that story, that magic. I have a vision of doing wildly creative photo shoots that express the worlds inside my soul, the colors and shapes and moods that live inside my mind. 

I am a writer, a storyteller with the ability to take my readers to places they've never been, to experience things in a new way; a passion for creating characters that live beyond the page, characters that people (including me) talk about as though they were real. I believe in what I do, and I will not give up on my vision of sharing those stories and those characters with the world.

I am a musician -- sharing that passion with my mother and holding the intention to share her talent, in my own way. By pushing myself to learn a new instrument, I have discovered a love for music and creation I never dreamed I'd have. By pushing myself outside my comfort zone, I am growing as a musician every week, I am finding the voice I never knew I had. I'm finding power I never knew I had.

I am a woman with a soul that longs to travel. To go wherever the Universe takes me, knowing I have a home, a sanctuary, to return to. 

I am a woman who is discovering what it means to have faith. To connect with something far greater than myself, to believe in its possibilities, to believe in what's possible when I work with this power, rather than against it. 

I am developing a new relationship with my body. Experiences early in my life taught me that it wasn't to be trusted, to be cared for, and certainly not loved, but I am working on changing all of that. I am learning that there is no reason to punish or shame this body, and there are many reasons to love it, just as it is. 

I am loved. For so much of my life, I truly doubted that I could be. I felt I couldn't possibly deserve the kind of love that came without condition, without qualification -- and even then I felt I couldn't live up to whatever those might be. I was confused when people said they loved me. In my head I kept asking, why? Who am I to deserve their love? But now I know. And I know this because I love me. I have made peace with the parts of me I abandoned a long time ago, found forgiveness and love and trust in them -- and they in me -- and now I understand what it is to be loved. Now I believe it when people say "I love you". I feel it. 

I am the woman one man tried to hold me back from being. But I found my wings. I claimed my power. I am the warrior, and the victory is mine.