I’m in Austin at the BirthFit Summit, and I hear myself saying the words, “I’m not that person anymore.”

I’m talking about 19-year old me like she’s somebody else. A stranger, or maybe a childhood friend.

But that’s not the whole truth.  I was there too, with her. Covered in veils of shame and confusion. I misunderstood the way I moved through the world.  I feared my intuition.

The Spirit called to mine even then, but when I heard it, I hid.  Just as I had been taught to do. I covered my ears, my eyes, and my heart until I could not remember the dream.  I could not see the beauty or recognize the song.  

So, the Spirit waited and stopped awakening the dreams within me.  The music stripped down to the simplest rhythm. 

I learned about suffering in the stillness.

The grief of losing my music. 

The residue of estrangement.   

I got to know that girl’s lonely, dark places.

I hated her weaknesses. Her lies. Her indecisiveness. 

She was fickle. Scattered. Co-dependent. Vain. She lost focus. She didn’t know what she wanted. She craved attention.  She cared too much what others thought and survived by being what everybody else wanted to see.  She kept herself so busy, but she couldn’t out-busy sadness. 

She oscillated between wanting to be anywhere but the painfully loud chaos of her own mind and being paralyzed by the depths of silence she could hold. 

So, I studied how she moved until I understood her better. Years poured by while I watched carefully. I could see the pain lining her nature and forgave her imperfections.  

I thought I was done with her then. But as I said it out loud, “I’m not that person anymore,” something in my heart reopened.

Something distant, but determined, whispering the truth that I already knew.

Forgiveness is not enough. She had more to show me. I asked her what it was and waited.

She came to me in a dream of unbalanced scales and told me a story about threads of gold, stretching from the beginning of the cosmos, through her heart and the earth beneath me.  She taught me how to see them.

The threads held truth. 

I remembered other pieces of her. She was as fluid as fire. She captured joy from everywhere around her, warmed it in her being, and gently placed it in cold, forgotten places. Rough edges didn’t bother her. She cared about the heart of things. 

She was asking me to see the strands of beauty in my most unbalanced moments. To hold all of me, including her, and acknowledge the way she’s woven into the story of who I am. 

She is with me now. She shouldn’t be dismissed.  She does not simply need forgiveness.  

She is worthy of love. And so am I.