Loud Mouth Brown Girl

I don’t want to be like the people who came before. With all due respect, their journey wasn’t mine. I have it much easier than they did and I want to honor that by recognizing it.

I know that my life is easier today because I am an adult than it was when I was a child. I have ownership over my life today in ways I didn’t in my growing years, and because of that I also live with deep-seated trauma that comes from not having autonomy over my own life and body.

Now that I know I have the freedom to heal and that my abusers can’t or won’t come after me, or at least now that I am pretending to believe that, I also have to train my brain to make room for other things.

Yes, I am traumatized. Yes, I am afraid they will come after me. No, I will not spend every day focusing on that reality.

Choosing not to live a life filled with fear doesn’t make me strong. Maybe it makes me brave, or maybe it just means I am too stubborn to die on anyone’s terms but my own.

Maybe it doesn’t mean fame and fortune, but at least this way I can live life on my terms without waiting for a man to tell me that I am not good enough.

All I’ve ever asked the men in my life is that they respect my boundaries, there’s a very specific reason that not a single male from my past – either from my friend group or the men I slept with or lived with – are a part of my present life.

None of them thought me worthy of showing respect to, and thus none of them got to stay. The few that are in my life now, have proven repeatedly, that they very much want to be a part of my life.

I’ve worked hard to get where I am today and while it may not be where I want to stay forever, it’s the safest place I’ve ever been. And it’s fucking beautiful.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl

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