I grew up in a household with brothers who didn’t particularly want to play with or be around me.

And I don’t blame them. In retrospect, they were little boys exploring and embracing what it means to be male, what masculinity was, and here I was – sensitive, high pitch voiced, clingy and ferocious.

I’d feel a resistance to my inclusion in things and feel ignored, pushed out, or dismissed most days.

Luckily my mother was very dedicated to her children. She’d notice my emotions and was committed to letting me know she loved me (regularly). She’d attempt to hug the melancholy away.

However I was steeped in a very masculine environment with brothers, friends of theirs, and my male cousins always over and a father focused on mentoring them. I was privy to conversations about developing young men, and hyper aware that I was the odd one out. Outside whatever was important.

In years a fact creating a personality organized around proving herself worthy. To anyone. Bad bosses, bad boyfriends, activity partners I’d taken to be friends. Family in idea. I strained at everything.

Till… David Deida, Mama Gena, Katherine Woodward Thomas, and Melissa Maya. If you don’t know who they are, find all of them. And my shadow work.

I just looked around one day and thought why am I single? How can I not have any children? After giving it my all in every direction??? What’s wrong with me???

I wanted to get to the bottom of it. So I began digging.

Been doing that work on myself for sometime now. And through it, I found a big open wound making choices for me.

A few more years and I found the person beyond someone’s sister, someone’s daughter, someone’s girlfriend, someone’s friend.

I found me.

Outside of winning.

Inside losing.

Before the race, without the race.

Aside from approval.

I used to say (to myself)…. “Well no one chose me.”

But I had to choose myself.

So I may not be the woman the “world” values.. but I have value. I look back at the person who made decisions from desperation now, her imbalanced connections, transactional friendships, torturous loves and send love.

Someone I haven’t seen in ages, asked me the other day – how’s the dating going?

The question felt so…. alien… I stopped dating once I decided to get to the bottom of me. And I’ve just met that woman.

I responded with a bunch of words because I didn’t know how to squeeze all this into a 2 second blurb.

But this war is enough, for now.