I have always been a woman who needs clarity.
More than beauty, more than eloquence, more than fate.
I want the truth–no matter how unfortunate.
And I need it to make logical sense.
That’s why I’ve spent the last decade clearing out guilt, and shame, and fear. I’ve asked a million wrong questions to reach the right ones. I’ve obsessed over the answers.
If, while I was asking and searching and obsessing, I learned to trust you, it wasn’t an accident. I’m still learning how to trust myself. If you’re here, if you feel this, if I’ve ever used the words love, or truth, or peace with you…
Soul-friend. Angel-human. You absolute gem. I cannot begin to thank you for making me feel safe in my own skin. For dancing beside me. For allowing me to dance with you.
It’s been ten years, at least, since I embarked on this journey of self-love.
I don’t know if I believe in reincarnation, but it feels as though this process of raising my house has taken multiple lifetimes to complete.
If I could sit down with ten-year-old Aquinnah and tell her one thing, it would be to keep asking. Even when it feels redundant. Even when everyone else has moved on. Keep asking until you find an answer that makes your soul sing, and then run with that. Do it until your questions confuse people. Make up your own damn answers.
Do whatever it takes to get the clarity you need to keep going.
But hold it all loosely. Don’t fold yourself into a box. Don’t allow a single belief to define you.
Embody your truth.
And you know what? I think I did tell my younger self about this moment.
I think I chose it.
Some days, I had to say it in the mirror: “You turn out fine.”
But that’s part of clearing out.
I’m not sure when it happened. Are you? Do you remember the day when you woke up, and you knew everything would be okay?
As 2019 draws to a close, I recognize that my clearing days–my constant existential questions and obsessive concerns–are finished. That this door is closing–locking–at my back. I’ve raised this house–at least a little.
So what now?
What do you do with a house full of knowledge?
I read a great book this year (surprise, surprise).
It’s called Mary Magdalene Revealed, and it’s by Meggan Watterson.
But I’m not going to recommend it to you. If you feel drawn to it the way I was, awesome. If not, that’s great, too.
I do, however, want to fill you in on something I learned from this book. Something I want to embody.
It’s a story. A story about a 17-year-old girl named Thecla.
I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t care. Stories don’t have to be true to hold you. That’s why I write fiction! So…
In the first century, Thecla heard Paul preaching in the streets. For three days, she listened to his teachings… much to her fiance’s dismay. When Paul was finally imprisoned, she visited him in the dead of night, hunting for more stories. Unfortunately, her fiance found out. And demanded that she be burned at the stake.
But something strange happened after they’d bound her up and lit the pyre. It rained. And rained. And rained. So Thecla didn’t burn.
Instead, she found Paul, who stood by and watched when a nobleman attempted to rape her in the street. After humiliating her attacker by ripping his crown from his head, Thecla was sentenced to death in the stadium. Again, they bound her and left her to die at the mercy of a lioness.
Except this beautiful, empowered, 17-year-old girl had such love rolling from her that the lioness refused to strike. She protected Thecla from the other animals in the arena. And Thecla, secure in her being, walked to the pit of water and wild sea lions near her.
Paul had said he wouldn’t baptize her. So Thecla allowed a blazing fire to envelope her.
And she dove into the water.
And she baptized herself.
In those few snippets, Thecla taught me what we do with houses full of knowledge…
We live in them.
Activate and embody. These are my words for 2020.
I want to take everything I’ve learned over the last ten years and make it work for me.
Like Mary Magdalene and Thecla and Joan of Arc. I want to embody the kind of love that empowers us to save ourselves and each other.
I want to become a woman who listens.
Whether the story is beautiful in joy or beautiful in healing.
I want the truth–unrestrained.
Because it doesn’t have to make sense.
It just has to BE.
Happy New Year, friends. LOVE BIG.
Photo by Andrew Ridley on Unsplash
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