Embers

I can't help when things happen. Most things aren't so clear, cut, and dry. There's no real ending sometimes. It is mid-November and I am starting over as if the new year has begun already. 

It has. 

I've written about the trials--so many trials!--this year. The lamenting was strong, but through it all, this smallish ember has been glowing from within me. It's this ever-present pulsating warmth that continues to push me forward. 

My biggest problems are my own. My inner-critic has this running monologue that is constant. I know it's origins but I'm on a different path now. I'm no longer selling myself short because someone told me once that I would have to. Those voices have become more distant in the last week. 

I was tired of allowing myself to keep falling backwards. Falling sucks, frankly, and I kept landing in the same spot. I don't want to do that anymore. I have this odd feeling of self-acceptance. 

The grief is still there, but it's undone. It's no longer front and center. Possibility exists now and freedom; freedom to be myself with no strings attached.

I realize this is kind of vague, but I find myself in this peculiar moment of realizing that I am capable of doing whatever it is I'd like. I want to write. I want to write everything. I want to write poetry and fiction and about my life, my traumas, and my fears. I want to pour my heart out onto these pages with complete abandon. I have stories to tell. I have an infinite wealth of words that I must bring forth. 

I can't wait another second on the "perfect time, place, or circumstance." I must do the work I was born to do and that is to write fearlessly. I've let others become dictators of my soul and that is done. I've never been one to care about what others think, and then something changed in me and I've been fighting for air ever since. 

There's been a seismic shift; an awakening of sorts and that is the only way I know how to describe it. I am curious about the next bit and very excited for what the future holds. This next chapter is wide open. This is my moment.