The long way back to yourself looks like uncertainty. Mistrust of your instincts.
It looks like outgrowing the things you used to be passionate about and not having grown into new passions.
It looks like dark nights of the soul acknowledging shame-filled truths and accepting hateful realities.
It looks like searching for pockets of joy in the sunshine with a flashlight.
It looks like allowing yourself to be loved on by loved ones who hurt you in the name of love and choosing to continue to love them without forgiveness.
It looks like chopping off your hair and going bald. Growing it back. Coloring it every color imaginable. Shaving it off again.
It looks like diving into yoga because the Christian church has never felt safe.
It looks like having the courage to stand in your truth and live out loud and proud.
It looks like not talking to your parents for three years and then finding yourself their main caretaker.
It looks like making six figures one year and being homeless the next.
It looks like hating yourself for being yourself and loving every single facet of you despite and in spite of.
It looks like never wanting to wake up and finding the happiness in the long days and harder nights ahead.
It looks like finally stepping into your creativity. Putting pen to pad and courage to ass and posting and sharing your prose — caring but not caring if it’s read or well received because the words needed to be in the light of the day and the darkness of your hard drive.
It looks like honey in raspberry tea sipped slowly while cramps ravage your body.
It looks like spending countless hours applying for jobs while being the spitting image of what your nieces dream of being — so much so they wear your jewelry and your makeup and your clothes and adopt your tastes and your style.
It is believing you are invisible and being seen by eyes you were never aware existed.
It is accepting that you are in your forties while you feel like you are in your early twenties and just graduated from college.
It is dichotomy and duality. Confusion and illusion. It is love and hate. Acceptance and denial.
It is everything and nothing.
It is imperative to life and detrimental to no one.
It is inevitable.
Romneka G. 
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