4.30.2014

The Forever Reminder

http://instagram.com/rachaelhope
I had a couple of days during spring break when the kids were gone and my Mom and her husband were out of town.  For over 48 hours I had the whole house to myself - a very, very rare occurrence.  I did what I wanted.  I focused on myself.  This isn't something I have much time for these days, though I plan on fully taking advantage of this silver lining to being unemployed.

During the darkest times, I became lost.  There is so much story in my last few years that sometimes I feel like I could just burst with it.  Little by little, it comes, when I finally get a moment to breathe and I let the bits and pieces run down my arms and into the letters on a keyboard and then there they are loose in the universe.  It's freeing.  It's scary.  It's necessary.  It's imperative.

This new ink on my wrist is a part of my story.  It's something I've been certain of for nearly two years, and it was just waiting for the moment to materialize.  That Tuesday during spring break, it suddenly stood there in front of me, and I grabbed it.  I did not tell anyone about this.  It is the smallest, simplest tattoo of my 8, 5 minutes and a $60 minimum, and I'd forgotten how much it hurts, but it was all worth it.

When I was coming out of the fog, there was a song.  Music has always been important to me, I know this is not unusual.  There is something about finding that one song, that mix of words and music and poetry that somehow is exactly what you need to hear at that very moment.  Songs can get us through hard times, and I had a song.
I'm no beauty queen, I'm just beautiful me
You've got every right to a beautiful life

Who says? 
Who says you're not perfect?
Who says you're not worth it?
Who says you're the only one that's hurting?
Trust me,
that's the price of beauty.
Who says you're not pretty?
Who says you're not beautiful?

Who says?
During a time in my life where I had let it be dictated for far too long how worthy I felt.  A time when I had walked, slept, lived within a haze of not knowing that I had the right to more, that everyone has the right to feel human, and alive, and loved, and beautiful.  There it was. 

This is not a shout.  This is not a fuck-you to the world.  This is not loud, not bold, not for anyone else to hear.

This is a whisper.  I can hear it floating in the wind anytime I turn my wrist over.  Who can tell me what I deserve from life?  Who can tell me whether I deserve to feel loved?  Who says?  Only I do.  No one else.  I am worth it.  I am beautiful.  Who says?  My own handwriting, telling me not to forget.  This is my forever reminder.