I hear a small voice in the early morning light. She sounds familiar. She's whispering, I am here can you hear me? I answer her back, yes, I hear you.  She's buried under all the rubble that the world has place upon her. Slowly she is climbing back out. I tell her that I have been looking for her and ask her where she has been. She says, I have been here all along. She is getting louder now.

Listen to her, she knows what to do....

And so I listen. I shut off the outside world and I sit with myself. I remove everything that told me who to be and just sit with the body that I was born with. And the voice inside said tell me the things that are true 

I am 32 years old
I have green eyes
Id tell you my natural hair color, but that like many other things has changed over the years and at this point in my life, I am not sure of my own natural hair color.
I love cats.
I love the small of gasoline.
I love my grandmothers front porch and garden.
I love Mint Ting a Ling ice cream. Not Mint Chip. They aren't the same.
The ocean. All water actually.
Campfires
Bookstores.
The smell of Fall in New York. I am not sure of the smell of Fall in other places around the world but here, it is everything and if I could bottle it up and wear it all year long I would.
Walking slow.
Peonies and the way the ants crawl all over them to help them grow
Laundry dried in the summer sun.

I am holding onto these small truths like an anchor. They are me and they are the things that haven't changed in the 32 years of my life. Everything else though is different. The way I wear my hair, the clothes I wear, how I talk and even think. If I am going to find me I need to stick with the truth.


The water has been choppy for awhile now. I haven't been treading water - I have been straight up drowning in it.

I need to listen to the girl inside. She is louder now. She is closer to the surface. She is rescuing me.