‘Manic and somewhat out of control.’  

That’s what she said I sounded like, ‘manic and somewhat out of control’.

It was hard to hear and rocked me.  I have spent my life not wanting to rock the boat or make too many waves.  I’ve stayed relatively quiet and in the background.  I speak out when I know it’s safe and/or when I’m safe.  Generally, I am a quiet support.  I have gone out of my way to ‘help’ when needed and am in the background of those that are doing the work of growing.

Writing these, and daring to tell the truth has been a process of monumental shifting of who I am.  I can see the arc of transformation from one of careful love-seeker to a bolder, more truthful woman. These writings began as a way to invite my self to the world carefully sharing tenderness so that you would allow me in.  I sought your trust by gently sharing that I have suffered in ways that maybe you have too.  I shared my sadness and my pain in the hope that you would feel a bit safer to share yours.

Most of all, I wanted you to know that my heart was large enough to hold your anguish as well as my own.  I wanted you to know that you would be safe with me and, in exchange, I could be safe with you.

All of that is shifting now.  Yes, it’s brought on more forcefully by what’s happening in our country revealing a divide much larger than most of us imagined was possible.  And it’s been stirring in me my entire life, this intense desire to be who I am, fully.

Raw.  Daring.  True.  Willing to risk everything and show up as the real me.  I want to be exposed as the woman I am and start fully living my own life.  I can’t do that and hide at the same time.

And neither can you.

Through these last stormy, crazy, wacky blogs I have been compelled to start telling the truth.  It’s not pretty and it’s not nice.  Not at all.  There is a shit load of anger in there that I know, with every fiber of my being, is a force so powerful I can move mountains with it.

You have told me you feel the same.  You have shared you’re tired of hiding and pulling your self in when you want to soar outward and upward towards the sky.  You feel the limitlessness of the power to tell your truth as well, and the potential that will be released by letting it go.

Like a balloon that becomes untethered to its captor and immediately flies up and away into the sky, we know we are destined to soar.  The ache of something greater stirs in us begging to be released.

I won’t live hiding bits and pieces of my self anymore afraid of revealing too much.  I don’t care if you are uncomfortable with my manic and somewhat out of control way of being.  In fact I say, absofuckinlootly YES!  I am manic and somewhat out of control now and it feels awesome.

And I’m just getting started.

For the rest of my life I choose to stand here and be me; raw, open, wounded, broken and glued back together in a way that allows you to enter and allows me out.  I’m not closed.  I’m not armored.  I’m not faking it.  Not anymore.

I’m untethered and beginning to soar.  Like the wild screeching hawks that fly above our house begging to be heard and known,  I am announcing to the world,

I  AM  HERE  AND  MY  EYES  ARE  OPEN