On My Own Terms

"Going at your own pace means you are living in your timeline, in your own very special way" 

 ~Unknown

I wasn’t really planning on writing  or posting this but here I am. It is a fruit of a spur in inspiration; a string of words inspired by a picture and yet something that has been weighing on my spirit and my chest for a while. For those who don’t know I have a background in martial art. As a taekwondo athlete, I participated in tournaments and national junior championships (and actually won the nationals for my division) and dabbled for a while in jiu-jitsu. And then my health went to shreds and so did my life so I had to step off the mat to take care of myself. To care for that body that had carried me through so many great and not so great things in my life, to carry for that body that I had pushed to the limit so many time, to which I had constantly asked from and not really given to the proper way. I wouldn’t say that I am 100 percent back to where I was before everything went haywire but I am making my way there. I had been planning my comeback to the mat for years. I did come back actually. I few times and hoped it was it, but it wasn’t. I wanted to be ready. I wanted to be it, but it wasn’t. So then I knew I wasn’t ready. So when I finally accepted that, I just let the idea run its course and I gave my body and my mind the time to recover. I gave myself permission to stop running and to take a break. 

And I know my people miss me and they mean well when they say : “when are you coming back? Are you coming back soon? You need to come back! We miss you” but there is that part of me that feels pressured and sometimes trapped. It is the part of me that always wants to please. The part of me that would break to pieces to make people whole, the part of me that will cry in private if it meant the people I love and care for (and who obviously love me and care for me) would be beaming of joy in public. There was a time where I would have pushed beyond reason to make a comeback but my failed attempts at coming back have proven me that I cannot make something happen when it’s not time for it yet. And it’s not just the fear of failing again; it is not just that the timing is not there for me to make it happen: it is just knowing in my heart of heart that I am not ready yet. When I saw that picture of my people online, having so much fun on the mat I thought to myself : “gosh I miss that! I miss those crazy choking times and training like mad men. I miss being around my people and I miss that mat” but then I told myself : “I will go back… But when I do, I want it to be on my own terms”

And the same goes for dating and being in a relationship: people always ask and inquire. They frown and get borderline offended when my answer to them is : I am not dating now and I am not intending to do so for a while. I find it offensive and rude when people expect me to run with their timeline when I have one of my own that is unfolding and that I am desperately trying to understand without constantly having to ask myself: “what in the black Jesus is going on now?”

Just because you are ready for it to happen -whatever it is- doesn’t mean that I am. Just because you or I want a comeback so bad, doesn’t mean it will happen on your time clock or mine. And please, for the love of everything that is sacred on this precious earth, know that just because you apologized for the hurt that you caused doesn’t mean that I am ready just yet to drop the offense and meet you on the other side of the emotional fence. Life doesn’t work that way. Neither does the heart. It is all a process and it won't just happen overnight.

So when I say I will do it; when I say it will happen; when I say I am working on it; when I say that I am rooting and preparing for that comeback, just know that it will be on my own terms. And if you can’t get over it, then I have nothing more to offer you beside these words put together with nothing but good intentions and the hope that eventually you will get it. And if you don’t, well, at least I would have tried.

Until then,

The Happiness Fairy 👸

Breaking The Silence

"To live in your purpose, to walk in it, to go back to it time after time when all you want to do is give up, comes from the understanding that there is something about it that is bigger than you. And that something will keep nudging you until you finally do what you have been called to do. It doesn't matter how hard it is or how many time you give up. What matters is that after you're done kicking, scream and crying, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep going"

It has been months and I haven’t been here as much as I thought I should have been. And there have been moments where I was caught up in the guilt: the guilt of not doing enough. Of not being enough. Of not working on my relationship with writing as much as I should have. But then I remembered: I remembered the mantras and the mental notes that I wanted to carry with me through 27 and I found grace in the midst of the guilt and the sorrows that were trying to drown me. I found grace because I had finally come to term with the fact that life came with a lot of things and sometimes no matter how much you want things to turn out a certain way they just don't. I struggled and grappled with my emotions, wanting to write. But I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t find the words some days. And other days, I just couldn’t find the strength and the inspiration to write them. And when I did find the words and I when I finally did get in the motion, there was just that crippling fear that it wouldn't be good enough. That my words wouldn't resonate as much as they did before. In those moments, what Adele meant when she was standing on the stage at the Royal Albert Hall made sense. In those moments I felt with every single fiber of my being what she meant when she said : "I was afraid I would have that song on this new album that would go and do what Hometown glory did". Being away for so long and deciding to come back, I didn't know if I still had it in me, if my words still had the power to go ahead and do what they had done before: to encourage, to move people the way they moved me as I was writing them; to bring healing and hope as I opened my world and invited strangers to step in it in a so brutally honest way that I was not always comfortable displaying with people I had known for years.

And the truth is as I write those words I still don't know: I still wrestle with it everyday. And honestly, yes: some of the things I write might suck. They might suck BIG TIME. But there might be that one bit in it that will get caught on a corner of your heart and go ahead to do something magic, a little bit like a warm hug that you long for at the end of those hard days where the only hard -and yet brave- thing that you did was hold yourself together and not fall apart. Writing is always a difficult process. Finding the right word, breaking your heart open and baring your soul to the rest of the world is the hardest and yet the bravest thing I have ever found the courage to do in a world, era and society where the culture preaches that to wear your heart on your sleeve will get you hurt and to be vulnerable will get you burnt. Maybe I will get hurt... And maybe I will get burnt... But maybe... Just maybe... Being vulnerable and keeping on sharing my story will reach people and hearts and go ahead to do something that would otherwise not happen.  Maybe... Just maybe... Some people will find a way to heal, to be hopeful, to be joyful... to smile again... to try again... to love again... To finally find the courage to type again on this keyboard is a little awkward and yet comforting. It is like being reacquainted with an old lover: the love is still here but things are just different; different than they were the first time around and yet there is that sense of familiarity, of words and emotions flowing so gracefully that hadn't happen in a while. There is a shift in the way the words are being put together,  a shift in the intentions, a shift in purpose, a shift in season. I have been through the ebbs and flow of life and through processes that have allowed me to shed some layers and in more than one way grow.  I have been on the highest mountains where I could feel the breeze and watch a few sunsets and sunrises and I have also been down to the lowest valleys and walked through them. I am just growing and  adjusting, wrestling with my craft, my art, as I learn to master it and allow my purpose to be manifested through it.

It is perhaps three months a little too late, but I’m hoping that with this new year will come new words and a renewed sense of why I started that journey in the first place. I hope, if anything, that clicking on the link leading here and reading these words, they will still ring true. They will still be relatable and that the stories and posts will still feel like home. Like you never left. Like I was never gone. If anything, I hope me finding my way back here will also help you find your way back to wherever you are trying to go but can’t see to find the way to.

Cheers to a new year and to being back to the things that matter.

Until next time,
The Happiness Fairy 👸