A Woman in America’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day. I am a woman in America. A woman in Mishawaka, Indiana to be exact. I’m sitting in my living room watching the snow melt out the window just beyond where my dog is sitting. Is she watching the snow melt too? Is she thinking about her purpose?

I was sure that I would start feeling sure of something by now. Ten months ago I started this journey inward to find the fragmented pieces of me and heal them. My inner child, my inner teen, and the women who came first to form me take walks with me around the pond in my backyard. It’s getting harder to tell us apart. Every time I find a shadow part, I make her one with me. I am no longer keeping score or holding grudges. I’m bringing each of them flowers and forgiveness.

I’m not crying, it’s just the snow melting the ice in me. The only thing I’m sure at this moment, is that on the other side of this transformation, I will safely belong with me.

A Woman in America Hurts

Sadly, this has not always been true. My childhood was turbulent to say the least. My teenage years were defined by disordered behaviors and lack of safety physically, mentally, and emotionally. As a young adult, I was dysregulated, reactive, and often unsafe in the neighborhood of my own mind.

Two weeks after my third child was born, I started college. Three years in, I quit. I had to work. “There’s no time for this. My college loans were piling up and the kids had needs that school doesn’t pay for.” For the next fifteen years, I let my struggle consume me and keep me small and scared.

A Woman in America Heals

A year ago, I would have sold my soul to see a stranger smile because of a title I gave her that she never deserved. And I would have ripped myself to shreds because of shame and fear had the stranger not smiled back. When I see pictures of myself from a year ago, two years ago, or five, I am overwhelmed with compassion. That woman was really trying to share the light before she even realized she held it and needed it for herself. She didn’t know what the light was or that it was in her, but there were little sparks of joy and pain waking her up and softening her.

When I go back a little further, to eight years ago, or ten, fifteen, my heart center overflows. That woman was trying to survive a darkness that nobody could see. She was lost more often than not and only living to keep three little people alive. While I was in it, I thought I was all alone. But her pain is now my purpose.

A Thousand Different Women

The deeper I go, the easier it is to see where all of the parts and pieces of me broke off and got left behind. Or had been given away to someone who I thought needed the piece of me more than I needed it myself. Because my willingness to go deeper, I have brought healing to my past. And I’m breaking free from my shame. Perfection will never be a goal of mine again.

Emory Hall wrote, I have been a thousand different women. This poem lives in my bones. I listen to it every day. The first time I heard it, I wept. I fell to my knees and I have been healing significantly since.

The woman I am today sits quietly staring out windows creating poetry and cultivating peace. I remember the lessons and I hold the love.

Thanks for reading!