Reframing Myself

It’s been a long time since I’ve had the mental and emotional space to think about me. Not the roles I hold, not the endless lists, not the deadlines or responsibilities—just the soft, complicated, luminous being that I am when everything else is stripped away.

For so long, I’ve been in healing mode. My body and spirit demanded it. Recovery isn’t just a timeline, it’s an entire landscape you learn to walk through slowly, tenderly, sometimes with shaky legs. Healing asked me to surrender to rest, to listen closely, to prioritize survival. I did. And I’m grateful.

But now—there’s a stirring. A low hum beneath my ribs. A call back to my own rhythm. An urge to return to myself, not in the same way I used to, but with a shift—with effort, with intention.

I’ve always been a “do me” person. From the beginning, art was my compass. Even when the world felt upside down, I stitched, I painted, I photographed, I collaged—I found ways to weave fragments into something whole. Art was never just about making; it was about survival, about declaring, I am still here. It was about recovery long before I knew how much recovery I would need.

Now, I sense another threshold. The desire isn’t just to create but to create from a renewed place. To honor all that I’ve survived without letting it define me. To explore joy as seriously as I’ve explored grief. To move toward softness with the same determination I’ve brought to resilience.

This shift feels less like a reinvention and more like a return—like peeling away layers until the core of me can breathe freely again. It’s about claiming time, space, and energy for myself. About tending to my body, my spirit, my garden, my breath. About recognizing that my art and my life are not separate—they are mirrors, constantly revealing where I’ve been and where I might go next.

So here I am, whispering a promise to myself:
I will make the effort.
I will choose me.
I will create from the marrow, not just from the scar.

And I’ll let whatever comes next be a continuation of the wild, radiant story I’ve always been writing—through color, through texture, through silence, through light.