Unbounded Courage

What is Courage? It is “strength in the midst of pain or grief” it is the ability to look pain in the eye, while breathing and growing, despite life’s constant battering. Courage takes time and painful effort to build, while usually seeming so unattainable. The incredible thing is, if we strive to continue fighting, if we choose to turn around and face our reluctant demons, we have the power to build an unwavering courage. An unbounded courage. There’s so much broken, yet incomparably sacred beauty tied within the struggles of building an unbounded courage. To achieve this is simply beautiful.

Over 3 years ago I began my journey of self discovery and evolvement. I would be lying if I said that this journey hasn’t ripped me apart and hardened me at the same time. I have been forced to come face to face with who I really am and the extensive amount of baggage I carry; this is terrifying... it's painful and, at times, tormenting. I had to stop in my tracks, turn around, and look every single one of my demons in the face. I locked eyes with my fear and doubt. I exchanged words of anger and hatred with my self loathing. I laughed in the face of my depression and began slowly and carefully untying the knots that tethered me, so closely, with my bitterness. What was most terrifying was locking eyes with myself; looking down into the eyes of a broken little girl, grabbing her hand while assuring her of her immeasurable bravery and embarking on this new journey together.

The agony of searching deep within could not be compared to anything else I have ever been through. It meant standing on the doorstep of my biological mother’s house and looking into her empty eyes as she told me she loved me, numbly having to explain to her why I could never love her back; yet being unable to tell her that I hate her so much for breaking me before the world could. It meant hating my parents for who they were and what they’d done, while learning to love them for who they are now. It meant unraveling every religious lie I’ve been force fed and turning my back on every corrupt, selfish, and legalistic truth I’ve been taught my entire life. It meant detaching myself from toxic relationships and dealing with the pain of the detachment. It meant turning off every emotion chaotically placed inside of me, then trekking into the void of lonely darkness to find them again. My change began when I stopped layering my bricks atop one another and decided I no longer wanted the notion of “easy” that I’d created for myself.

It is so much easier to hang on to a painful, confusing past. It is so much easier to swallow our questions, make excuses for our setbacks and actions and accept the absolute bare minimum. It's easier to drown in anger, to look in the mirror and hate what we see. It’s so much easier to accept someone else's truths rather than create our own. There’s a chaotic peace in going to bed every night, hoping we wake up and everything has fallen into place or, for some of us, that we just don’t wake up at all; But here’s the thing, it isn’t until we realize if all we do is fear and hesitate, we make room for those things to rule our lives and drown out our courage... we accept living in a clouded reality of ignorance, while managing to slowly kill our potential. What is the point of living if all we do is hide behind the walls we’ve built for ourselves? What is the point of taking our next breathe if it is one weighed down by the figurative road blocks we've accepted as part of who we are? Don’t get me wrong, there are still miles and miles worth of walls to unbuild and years worth of healing; but despite the work I’ll need to put in, I want to shamelessly share my story. Regardless of what this journey might bring, I want to use this blog to speak my truths in hopes that someone else may have the courage to create theirs. I want to let you in on my struggles, doubts, and victories. I want to show you the pathway that i've built for myself; A pathway paved with memories, tied to stepping stones that are molded by even the smallest pieces of my jagged heart. I’ve accepted that I am a mess, a beautiful, wondrous, colorful mess. This is the part where I use my courage to show you that mess, where I show you that the remains of every broken heart creates beauty beyond understanding and an unbounded courage.