My birthday - August 14, 2019

The day I surrendered.

The day I saw myself.

My first day of living from a full heart.

To the rest of the world, my birthday is February 21, 1983.  This is when I came into the world but not the day I started living.  For nearly thirty six and a half years I have been surviving. I have been trying so fucking hard.  I almost died when I was born. I came into this world fighting to survive, fighting for my life when my heart didn’t fully develop.  When the physical trauma of my heart healed, I didn’t stop fighting, trying and surviving...for thirty six and a half years.

Today, everything changed.  I let go of control, I gave myself permission to let go of the reigns.  To be with myself. To see what would happen.

What happened was that I gave myself the most profound and transformative gift of my life.  The gift of seeing myself, for recognizing me and my gifts and feeling full, just as I am.

Everyone said stop looking for love, he’ll show up when you least expect it.  Work on loving yourself first - you know what - I do love myself and have been doing nothing but that for the past four years.

But today is different - I finally SEE myself.  I recognize myself not for what the world thinks I should be, but for who I am.  Who I am when I live from my heart and not on the stage I put myself on. I finally feel full.  I not only love myself but SEE myself.

Nothing is more important to me than living this truth.  The physical hole in my heart at birth healed with time and lots of hospital visits, but the emotional pain persisted, until today.

There was a free fall, all to watch myself fall apart, be put back together and then visit my life, starting with my birth.  I held that baby and told her to relax. I saw a vibrant 8 year old girl jumping and dancing on her trampoline by herself. Delighting in giving herself a show and jamming out to cassette tapes of Whitney Houston and Amy Grant.  I saw a middle schooler with a half shaved head following her brother to school on bikes. She wore shorts under her dress so she could play basketball before school started with the boys. I visited a really lost college student winning awards in LA with no one of significance around to support her.  I visited a tired, frustrated and lonely girl sitting in her big girl office with one light on in the dead of a Colorado winter night - working hard at 10pm for who knows what. In all these moments, I saw myself TRYING with all my might to keep up, to be seen and to prove my worth.

I saw my scar on my knee and asked why it happened - the scar is there to remind me of my sacrifices in love and relationships.  I’m finally ready to ask for what I want and need.

I told this baby, this girl, this woman and this body I saw her, she belongs and she doesn’t have to try so damn hard.

She got it.

I finally got it and took a deep breath and celebrated my first real birthday - fully living, fully present, fully alive.

I now feel in my bones what it means to love myself, to see myself and to live my truth.  This isn’t to say I’m perfect at it, I’m only a day old. However, it is saying it’s a feeling that I will be present with every day to experience.

I continue to trust my process, to surrender and to let myself be led.  And finally, to let go of control...

xxxStacy