Xe lay in bed, thoughts running through xir head. Xe couldn’t understand, couldn’t remember why xe’d lashed out. Or maybe if xe stopped moving, stopped running, then xe would.
All xir life, xe had been fighting. Fighting to be seen and heard in xir family unit. Xe’d been told to stay small because xe was too boisterous, too loud, to sarcastic, always teetering on the edge of loveable and unlovable; always told that if one was not loveable they’d be alone, never happy. It ways always made to sound criminal, “you’ll forever be alone”, like being sentenced to solitary confinement.
So xir method was to clam up. To pressurize xirself and let the angry, sad, glad thoughts stew to create rock formations around xir heart.
Xe had built a moat there — a protective barrier to save xirself — and over the years xe filled it with the fiercest of defense mechanisms, creating a fortress around xem. So as time passed and more people came, xe was pleasant, always supportive because xe knew the sting of lack of support and xe wanted all those around xem to feel held and heard, especially in the moments when xe knew xir younger self would not have been.
So xe gave instead. Gave love and light to those who were compassionate, those xe saw had a softness, a worn quality to them; a comfortability like a heavily used pair of shoes that had walked many miles, climbed many mountains, and trudged through many mud filled pits wondering if they’d ever make it to the other side. Gave hell to a system that would take people in and spit out the ones that they deemed were imperfect because they would not conform to the manifesto that had been established to define perfection. Gave compassion to those xe loved, trying xir best to not come down as hard on those close to xir heart as those who had loved xem before; who’d loved xem in a sometimes hurtful way; the weight of unhealed trauma wrapped around xir neck as xe fought to show kindness when all xe wanted to do was run and scream — a poorly communicated plee for affection.
Xe sat there and realized that xe’d never allowed xirself to just be.
Be loved.
Be cared for.
Be held.
Xe had spent so much time fighting for others, trying to prove xirself worthy of love, trying to make a space in the world for xirself and the “other” misfit toys who society said didn’t fit; so busy that xe never realized that xe did fit, effortlessly.
Xe didn’t have to try.
Xe didn’t have to fight for it.
There was already a space for xem in the hearts and minds of those that xe had shined xir light on, had shown compassion to, had stood up and fought for, had defended tooth and nail. A space to belong already existed.
And it was more than that.
A space to belong had always existed for xem, since the moment that xe had been born.
And as xe lay there, wracked with anxiety, swirling feelings, caught in a mental storm that clouded xir perception and perspective, as the feelings that tried to edge xem to realization finally lifted, xe could see the truth of it.
Xe didn’t have to fight.
Xe didn’t have to try.
All xe had to do was just be.
Settle.
Hand over the map to lead those filled with love safely past the mountains and moats and barricades that xe had built up and let those whose light xe had been drawn to in the darkness find xir tender spots and love those too.
Xe had to stop, stop the monsters in xir head who had been born from xir mantra of “I am not lovable”, the silent invocation xe didn’t realize xe had been chanting all xir life and let xirself be loved.
And it was scary because it was a truth xe had not been conditioned to see.
That a part of xem xe still couldn’t see.
And it was scary because it — the truth that xe was truly loved and lovable — was more real than the limiting beliefs xe had held in xir heart.
Xe knew it was real because xe could feel it in butterflies in xir stomach; in disturbed emotions that unearthed childhood traumas like the shifting of tectonic plates that caused earthquakes which destabilized the foundation of years of ninja like self-hatred that had built up in volcanic eruptions of anger and hurt then cooled with tears; in a decades long cycled of lava and cooling, then more magma and still more waves of dejected cooling. The building blocks of the fortress xe had built up.
Xe layed there, the emotions ravaging her insides as xe was reborn from the rebellion of the new beliefs that stormed xir inner emotional walls to illuminate a new truth.
And xe wondered what it would be like to just be.
Caia Rose 