Unapologetic

All of my life I have tried to make myself small.

By nature I am loud, eccentric, brash, outgoing, dramatic, passionate, and quite frankly, annoying. 

I don’t know how to “come quietly” or be anything less than all or nothing. I don’t know how to hold back any part of me and when the sum of those parts is overwhelming, I tend to make others feel that way. 

I am a lot to take in. I’m not a breath of fresh air, I’m a sand storm. I blow through with ripping winds and leave traces of me on every part of your life. My hair in your car, my smell on your clothes, my voice echoing in the halls of your home and of your heart. I don’t know how to simply pass through a place without making it my own, without leaving my mark.

I have a heart the size of Texas, which is just as unapologetically proud. 

When I love, I love hard. I pour everything I have and then continue to give and give until I have become totally depleted. I will love all of you, even, and especially, the parts you don’t like about yourself. I will turn any house into a home and frame all of our photos. I will make friends with your family and they will ask about me long after I have gone. I will buy bones for your dog, and give piggy back rides to your kids. Whether romantic or platonic, I will become an extension to your life if I love you, regardless of if you reciprocate. 

And while I attach quickly, the speed does not negate how hard won this loyalty and affection is. It only furthers the truth of my love for you. 

I will dance and sing obnoxiously, often, and in public places. I will make you carefully curated playlists for any and every occasion. I will send you poetry and movie quotes and cry watching the same film I have seen 87 times. I will take Polaroids and write your name in the margins of my journal. I will exhaust you completely but you will never forget how much I care about you.

I am incapable of shutting my mouth. I will tell you if something is stuck in your teeth or if you deserve better out of the life you currently lead. I will always speak up when I believe something is wrong and I won’t ever stop fighting for the little guy. I get myself in trouble with this big mouth of mine and even larger personality. But conviction runs through my veins and it is just as much a part of me as the hands I use to write these words.

I have a tendency to see the potential in a person and never stop pushing them to reach it. 

Because I expect a lot for my friends and even more for myself.

I will run until I burn out and then spend a day of self care to reset and begin again on Monday fervently chasing my dreams and exhausting every resource I have to help the people around me. 

But being this type of person means I am often too much to palette. I’m too much opinion, too much energy, too much drive toward the finish line near or far away. 

And so my entire life I have tried to quell the beast inside so that I might be more digestible for absolutely everyone but myself. I wanted to be the soft spoken beauty who read her books, and looked over her glasses at the world, never stirring the pot, never disturbing the peace, loved by everyone and hated by no one. I wanted at times to be invisible because the spotlight can heat up and there were days that I got burned. 

I wanted to live life with less resistance, the easier road, the shinier path, seemingly. 

The fact was that I wanted to be anyone but who I am. 

And time and time again I tried to silence my inner voice, I tried to shrink myself to make others feel big. I tried to give comforting, although dishonest, words. I tried being the one everyone likes. And instead of the life of the party, I was the one serving the drinks. 

Every time I gave effort to these futile goals, I stripped more of my identity away and gave power to a lie. I let myself believe that I was made incorrectly, and that my very existence was a mistake. I indulged in the false truth that the best thing I could do is appease others. 

But God, I now know that I was made for so much more than this. 

I was born to stand out. 

My voice was crafted to a loud and thunderous tune, my spine reinforced by all of the adversity I have gone through. My pain, my joy, my lessons learned, were all put along my path specifically because courage is one thing I have never lacked. 

Because as people we are all so unique and all perfectly and wonderfully made. My purpose on this earth is to shout back into it that there is more work to be done, and I am going to pave the way. 

And now I look at a life lived almost unapologetically and realize all the time that was wasted trying to transform into a woman I don’t even know. 

I realize that the road less traveled won’t always, or often, be the easiest. But from here on out it’s the one I will always choose to go. 

My feet were made rough to withstand the cobblestone streets of adversity and while I spent my whole life hating this, I realize now that it is a gift. 

So I vow to myself to stop hating the things that make me unique, to hold my head high and remember the words that my pastor once preached:

“Sometimes leaders have to walk alone”, I will shout it to the breeze. I will engrave it above every hearth of every house I call a home. I will carry it with me in my darkest moments, and one day I will whisper it to my daughter when she comes crying into my arms. 

You were made for so much more than what you feel you deserve, and the quicker you realize this the more you will see what you’re worth. 

So stand tall, stay true, don’t let this cruel world take another single piece of you. 

You were made perfectly as you are and one day, I pray soon, you will see the grander purpose that you have. 

You are capable of so much more than you could ever imagine.