RECLAIMING MY DESTINY

I’ve been an artist all my life. I was born to be an artist, a writer. This is something I’ve always known to be true, but there have been many times when I have abandoned that identity to try and do what is more “practical” or “sustainable”. I have abandoned myself and my true desires many, many times for different reasons, though none of them were good. However, no matter how many times I have left myself for someone or something else, my true self has always come roaring back, ferociously and mercilessly, demanding to be seen and heard. I always come back. I am nothing else in life if not resilient and stubborn. I have been knocked down, thrown down, and held down so many times, sometimes even by my own hand. I have died a thousand deaths. 

And yet, here I still stand. Each time I die and rise, something new seems to bloom. I do not think of myself as a phoenix that rises from the ashes, rather I am more like a pyrogenic plant. Pyrogenic flowering is a trait found in plants characterized by an uptick or climax in flowering following a fire incident. This adaptation enables plants to thrive in areas prone to wildfires to allow quick regrowth and survival of the species (best metaphor for my childhood if I ever heard one). I have never related to something so profoundly. Sometimes I feel as though I am unable to grow unless something harsh and painful happens to me. I seem to be playing life on hard mode most of the time, nothing really has come easily to me, and most things in my life have been a fight or struggle. I have often asked, why me? Why is it that everyone else seems to be able to do things effortlessly or at least with less struggle or roadblocks put in their way? 

But I have come to realize that some people burn in the fire and some people are made in the fire, and I seem to be the latter.

Perhaps, though, it is a privilege to have such adverse environments. Great things are not born in places of comfort. Great people are not made by living the easy life, and I have felt since I was a child that I was destined to be something great, do something great, to be more than average. I just didn’t realize how hard it would be and how long it would take. I am most certainly not there yet, but maybe for the first time in my life, I can actually see the path to get there. All the pain and lessons I have gone through in life have been preparing me and aligning me with my highest purpose.  

So, this is my journey to reclaim what I was meant to be, who I am destined to be. I no longer apologize for it, and I won't allow anyone, including myself, to impede my progress.

This is me reclaiming my destiny.