On the eve of my 20th birthday I was mimicking my friends' dance moves, in some kids' parents' basement (as you do in your late teens) and … I fractured my foot.
I woke up on my birthday with my foot so swollen, you couldn’t differentiate from where my foot began and my calf ended. My mom screamed when she saw it. I had just made JMU’s pre-professional dance company and I thought my life was over.
I’ve always had a flair for the dramatics.
Update: my life did not end (shockingly) after that fracture but I am a little-stitious. I do believe this event WAS a slight indication of how the next 10 years were about to go.
My mom has always said “at least you keep things interesting” and that I have.
My early 20s brought me to depths I never thought I would crawl out of and a self hatred I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy (I no longer have enemies but throw me a better analogy and I’ll take it).
Some of those depths were created by my own mind.
Others were reinforced by people's actions towards me.
The details don’t matter now but the state they left me in does…
I was nothing.
My body had no meaning.
I treated myself like garbage and so did others.
While painting my porch on a random Thursday, my husband asked me if I could go back, would I stop the events that haunted me for years.
“No.”
The answer may be unconventional, it may even provoke the thoughts “it obviously wasn’t that bad” but it was immediate. From my gut to my mind. No hesitation necessary.
If I had a time machine that allowed me to go back with the knowledge I know now, I wouldn’t change the moments that mentally, emotionally, even physically some days, brought me to my knees.
Because without those moments. Without those actions from others. Without my own mind trying to tell me I’m worthless.
I wouldn’t be me.
The person I am so damn proud of today. The person I fought for. Within the body I am worked for. Living the life I love.
I wouldn’t be the person who forced myself to travel solo to other parts of the world to prove to herself that she was capable of something.
I wouldn’t have searched and found more educational opportunities to understand why my emotional and physical responses were showing up in specific ways.
I wouldn’t be the person who truly understands what she wants to the core. The women who can listen AND respond when something feels even slightly off.
I wouldn’t have had to deep dive into relationships, to rediscover trust and safety, or learn to stand up for myself even when I was afraid.
I wouldn’t have experienced almost getting lost skiing in the Austrian Alps after dark because I got carried away listening to the stories of the old farmers at the bar. Or taught English in Samoa to students who taught me more than I could have ever given them, all because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, besides help and support.
I wouldn't have gone out, with my now husband, on our first date without any make-up on because if he didn’t like my face, he wouldn’t be the one. Or tackled an entire European summer with just a backpack, surviving off cans of tuna, so I could see the world on a yoga teacher's budget.
I wouldn’t have had the confidence to say goodbye to an industry that no longer served me emotionally. Or allowed myself to be a student of life, knowing I will never know everything, but by god I will try.
I wouldn’t be the woman who knows in her core that she can help others develop a life they don’t want to run away from. To find peace within their bodies. To find excitement in the every day.
My 20’s were beautifully dark at moments in time. And while moments are fleeting, your body will always remember.
But the darkest moments forced me to find joy in the every day, bringing practices into my life that I will carry with me forever. They forced me to step outside the comfort zone of misery and change my mindset around who I want to be in this world.
These moments showed me I am capable of so much more than what my brain will ever give me credit for.
So, to the darkest moments of my life, to my 20's.
I love you.
I appreciate you.
And I thank you.
Thank you for showing me that I can flip the script that is my life. Where I am doesn’t dictate where I am going, and where I have been has only given me strength and confidence to show others the way.
With a lots of love from a new decade,
Tia
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