The Fighter You Were Born To Be
Growing up I was a sweet, but salty child. I had my own mind and I wasn’t afraid to face my fears.
Like you, I’ve always been one to lean into the hard.
I was never particularly popular, part of me always want to be- but the other part the strongest part of me knew I wasn’t born to be like everyone else.
I was born to be me.
Fierce.
Fiery.
A complete contradiction to the box my parents, teachers and class mates continuously tried to put me.
When I was 16, I got pregnant with my son Ryan. I wasn’t going to do things the way my parents wanted me to, or the way my friends or counsellors suggested. I wasn’t going to give my child up for adoption, or have an abortion, or sent away to live with a distant relative. I knew what I was going to do, and nobody could tell me differently.
I decided I was going to marry my sons father, and at 16 we ventured to Georgia to get hitched (at the time it was the only state where you could be 16 and pregnant and get married without parental consent.) So we did.
The marriage was doomed to fail before it even began- but even back then I was forging my own path, experiencing life, and making a mess along the way.
Over the decades I have become comfortable with the messiness of life as a fighter.
Like me, you know you didn’t come into this world to just get by. You didn’t come into this world to just follow the path laid out for you. You came into this world to dream, to wander, to live, to explore, to make mistakes and fall flat on your freakin face.
This year has been a year of a lot of fear, uncertainty, change, and in many ways some have forgotten who they are while locked in their homes or separated from humanity by a face mask.
The separation has led many down the road to deep depression, others to a place of deep questions, and still many have said screw your mandates and hit the streets in protest and riots- fighting for what they believe in.
Personally, I stopped fighting for the most part- which isn’t me. I’ve become a keen observer- watching the madness and mayhem of it all, wondering where my fight had gone. Sitting back and just letting life happen to me.
Truth be told, I had become comfortable, which is not a feeling I have ever pursued or have even desired. Recently I started to ask myself why my life seems to stuck in place. For me this year has felt a lot like wandering in the desert, searching for a solid direction- not an airy fairy possible interest in a path- but a firm path to follow, a direction, not spinning in circles.
Last week I realized just how dangerous this sense of comfort has become to my own vision for my life and the values I hold, when I was faced with a personal situation- where I found myself completely powerless in a circumstance, which if I would not have allowed myself to get comfortable, would never have been an issue.
When fighters give up the fight and they allow themselves to get comfortable- they give up their power.
I realized through this situation how far I had let go of my life, not just the outcomes of my life. In the name of comfort, I had mistakenly and unwittingly given up the things I value, almost as a way to make someone else comfortable. I’d 100% given my power away.
The law of unintended consequences raises its ugly head, when we allow ourselves to get comfortable, and stop fighting.
Women like us, we weren’t born to stop fighting.
Women like us, we were born to tackle the hard stuff, we thrive in the fire.
Sure sometimes a break is needed, but only so we can get back in the ring and fight for our lives, our beliefs, our families, our relationships, our wealth, our happiness, and our freaking right to exist in the world.
Women like us were born to leave this world knowing that we were freaking here, we made a difference, and we mattered and made sure that the people blessed to be in contact with us mattered.
Here’s to a fierce week my friends.