PROLOGUE
"One thing you won't ever see is a rose without a thorn. Life ain't like the movie scenes. What's love without a flaw? I can only meet you as deep as you have met yourself…" — an excerpt from Memo Blue by Alina Baraz
This epigraph once held a mirror during the darkest period of my life-it asked to strip myself of ego and see myself for who and what I really am. The verse acted as a lighthouse to guide my spiritual journey of Becoming and it all began with a flicker; a single thought that dared me to step out of my shadow and step into my essence.
Like lightining to the heart, my intuition whispered to find my way back home. Though the noise of internal agony and self-doubt kept me anchored in fear—my life became a pilrimage of externally seeking validation, severe people-pleasing, and an excruciating ache to be accepted as I am (in the most imperfect way) but I failed to give myself the same grace.
Carrying a void, I trekked through life lifeless; half-baked with half of my faith—I ran from demons that didn't belong to me (demons I didn't deserve). You see, someone stole me from me. The vilest violation, a temple desecrated before I knew it was sacred. I spent the next year in a self-fulfilling prophecy that took me even further fromy calling; I cried tears sea-deep and in that reflection of desolation, I found only the absence of myself; and grief, as if on cue, arrived to agree.
Burial after burial, loved ones turned to dust (heaven couldn't take them without taking my light too), prescription pills were the only thing I could put my trust in. Don't wake me up from this bad dream-nothingness felt like a new reality I could (didn't want to) leave; go back to sleep, it's the closest thing I could get to feeling six feet and yet instead, I rose from water both purifying and renewing. My feet washed from the sins committed by others and the sins I've committed myself and from my desolation came creation. Somewhere between the water and the waking, the coffee was hot and the world was still here.
Though my body still remembered what my spirit was trying to forget, I shaved my head bald with a profound freedom from my curls that once wrapped around his hand when I begged for my life. My tears, dry from the weight of wanting to be in the casket with my grandmotehr, had nothing left to give. I cried intensely through the night, I still found my joy in the morning. The quiet flicker said 'Come home Brandon'-the Highet slipped through the dark to find me before I could even find myself, I just had to be brave enough to follow Him.
'I could only meet you as deep as you have met yourself' became a proverb I tattooed on myself.
A reminder that no matter what pain this life might bring, to never lose myself.
On Coming Home to Myself (to God)