The Part Where You Stop Being Afraid of Being Seen

This year, I finally came to a place where the notion of a perfect and absolute right time and ideal self was too heavy of a burden.

For the longest time, it was a reasonable idea. I’d tell myself that I would show this website to people when it had just the right amount of posts, the most compelling writing, when I had finished my art gallery, when I wasn’t this current level of ill, when I once again had a solid social media presence, when I was as close as I could get to being a properly contributing to society able bodied person, when people might give a shit about what I said or created. The reasonings felt as solid as they were endless.

Truthfully, they all boiled down to one big when: when I stopped being afraid of being seen.

When will it be safe for people to see us?

A small young voice inside of me had kept asking me throughout the past year. She’d ask me when I wrote down long winding thoughts in my journal at night, as I would meditate with folks at the monastery, as I made bits of art and thought of my old art stationary shop and always, as I’d feel the waves of anxiety any time I had to speak out loud about myself.

Her little voice kept asking; she really didn’t let up.

I’m glad for it because it quietly pushed me to uncover uncomfortable parts of myself. Like the truth that it really hadn’t felt safe to be truly seen for a very, very long time. In fact, I hadn’t felt like I was enough of anything for years since I last had a relapse in health and fell down a rabbit hole quickly vanishing to an old grim reality.

I was extremely severely ill for years. Completely bedridden, unable to do the most basic of tasks, unable to walk, sit up or even read and desperately swimming through levels of suffering I don’t wish on anyone; it truly felt like a Groundhog Day in hell every single day. Seemingly again, I felt wiped from society and forgotten to most; it felt hopeless. Having lost all sense of who I once was, I thought I would be there forever.

In this place, being seen was terrifying.

Then, as wonderfully and unexpected as life can be; everything changed.

Slowly and with much trepidation, I found hope, community and a way through.

I am currently writing this, on a laptop, sitting upright, after having walked to the bathroom by myself. If you know how amazing that sentence was to type, then you know.

Today, is the part where I stop being afraid of being seen.

So, here I am, as I am.

Not ever truly broken but whole, alive and so, very much enough.

I want this little home I’ve built to become a place that shares my hope, strength, love and aspirations with you all.

If I can help plant even one seed of hope in one single person, it will be worth it.

So much love,

C.