Yesterday someone referred to me as bold. It brought tears to my eyes because I remember being in my thirties and crying in my therapist’s office because I was no longer bold. It was my goal to become bold again. The thing is I don’t remember taking steps to regain my boldness. Growing into myself was a journey and I don’t remember it being pleasant.
I was depressed, about to be a divorced mother of two, and broke. The last thing I was, was bold. But I wanted to be.
People always make their transformation seem so easy and I wanted to name the parts of my journey that I remember. There is probably more but this is what I remember.
I went to therapy. Lots of therapy. And healed my trauma. Sometimes that involved meds.
I grew locs – even enduring the phase that made me question my choice. And believe there were those days.
I learned to like what I saw in the mirror, even the pudgy middle.
I exercised, not to lose weight but to manage my anxiety.
I pursued the degree that I wanted.
I spoke up and named the job that I wanted.
I stubbornly refused to be anything but my authentic self even if it meant losing relationships.
I moved to the place I wanted to live.
I stopped allowing people I love to take me for granted. It wasn’t/isn’t easy.
None of this was easy, but I guess the journey resulted in the reclamation of me, and under all the people pleasing and trauma responses the result is that someone, one person, sees me as bold. That comment as innocuous as that person may have thought it was helped me to find a piece of my serenity as a Black woman.
