I was looking through pictures on my phone. It was like I was seeing my past self with new eyes. I spent so much of my youth consumed with my body image, I was forcibly smaller bodied for a good portion of my teens because of disordered eating. I worked so hard in my teen to amass power for myself where I felt it was lacking. I don’t know if I was as aware of the other things taking place in my life. I had good friends, and a supportive mother, and siblings that cared about me. My childhood, while being poor, had nourishment in it. When we got out of foster-care, I was well taken care of by my mother. Encouraged, pushed to go after the things I was inspired to do. My mother wanted the best for me. Certainly circumstances arrived into our lives that caused stress and my mother’s boundedness to working at a toxic job showed up in our lives as her unavailable at times. But after the years of homelessness, I had an adolescence that was good to me.
That’s my reclamation today. That I can say I my childhood was loving. I was loved. Poor and hurting but loved. It’s the hurt and healing that I’ve spent all my twenties focused on in addition to trying to get a degree so to not be poor. But, it seems poverty is trickier than a bunny on easter. All past versions of me are now tuned into the understanding that I am attentive to the needs they didn’t have met and the questions that didn’t have answers. If feel myself soothed these days knowing that I’ve tended to all parts of me that were not cared for with intention. I can give and pour into any part of myself now. I have given myself the gift of a healthy self relationship. I love me so much and am grateful that I went back to reclaim what was hurting inside of me.
Now I feel like I’m getting a second chance at a career I thought I’d never make it in. Because of ADHD, my autoimmune illness, my hatred of capitalism and mistrust of people in the workplace. I’m finding myself back at the place I was long before I choose my spiritual path. There may be room for me to pursue both. I can create a financially stable life for myself. That feels relieving to say. I can be committed to my life path with spirit and cultivate a satisfying career too. I can have them both. The magic and the mundane.