This post is dedicated to Trish Ahjel Roberts, who inspired it with her weekly email.
In this email, Trish makes it clear that no matter what we do to try and prevent change from affecting our lives, it is always going to affect our lives.
I’ve been struggling a lot internally lately, because I am still trying to measure who I am today, with the person that I used to be.
The person I used to be was so strong, she dealt with so much, and even when the chaos peeked out every now and then, she worked really hard at keeping a lid on all the stuff that was slowly eating her alive. Alone.
I am really proud of that person, but I am not her anymore, I’ve grown so much in the last year, I’ve pushed myself harder this year than I have in any other year of my life. I’ve actually made an effort to work on healing some of the damage caused by abusers, rapists, and white supremacists.
I’ve worked damned hard, and the exhaustion that I feel everyday is a sign of that hard work.
I’ve also struggled with the idea that I am not proving to be as successful as I think that I want to be, while also remembering that I only just got started about two years ago.
I’ve been working really hard on this fiction blog, La Lumiere Magazine, Okay, I’ve been passively working on it, but the point is that I’ve been working on it for two years. On paper.
In my head these are stories that I’ve been weaving in and around my brain for the last thirty or so years. It’s only starting to make sense to me in such a way that I am starting to discover that I am actually a fairly decent fiction writer, but I always knew that.
What I didn’t know was how I was going to take the fantasy of being a fiction writer, and turn it into a reality. I am starting to do that, I am putting together all the pieces that I one day hope will develop into a novel and who knows what else.
But it’s going to take time.
I am in a place of transition, and recognizing that has taken a lot out of me, because it means being uncomfortable with the fact that I am growing and changing.
They say that scientifically you stop growing as a woman in your twenties, but mentally? That growth takes a life time. Where I am right now is not going to be where I am at mentally when I am seventy-five.
I was always destined to be the Loud Mouth Brown Girl, but it took time to get this place where I could communicate that to the world.
I know it feels like some days are never going to end, like they are all the exact same, but every single day is just a little bit different than the day before, even if you try to ignore the fact that the world is changing around you, it’s going to be different, no matter what you do.
There are times that I am driven absolutely insane with the idea that I am never going to get anywhere, or become anything, and there are people in my life that are absolutely convinced that their cruelty is a part of what makes me strong.
But they’re wrong. What makes me strong is my drive, my passion, and my absolute inability to give up on myself. When something doesn’t work out, I turn around and start over again, and I have no problem continuing this process until everything is as it’s supposed to be.
Some people compare this mentality to OCD, but the truth is that it has nothing to do with being obsessive, and everything to do with the fact that just because you have a vision, doesn’t mean that it’s perfect. It takes moving puzzle pieces around, it means making choices today that you didn’t think you were capable of making yesterday.
Change is here, it is in every molecule that surrounds our existence, it is our ability to recognize that things are changing, that matters. If you can do that, you can do anything.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 