We make ourselves into the prettiest packages, smile innocently at passerbys. So focused on how we measure up to expectations, we slip into our handmade costumes of false facades. As we hide ourselves from the world, our memories fade, complexities weaken, and the light of our stories dim.
It’s exhausting to tuck in your spirit day in and day out, to make sure your feelings are folded up nice and neat, to be just enough, but never too much. In fact, I believe we spend so much time in our own hidden worlds; we forget our inherent nature. We lose sight of our intrinsically intertwined stories and the healing power of sharing them.
There is so much noise, static threatening to drown us out. However, we hold each others' hands and rise. It's time we come home to our stories, to our bodies we abandoned long ago. Let us stand and take up space together.
And if you must raise your voice, may it be to quiet the crowds, to lend an ear, to give the mic to the untold stories we so desperately need to hear.