Undaunted: Song of Myself

I stare in wonder at this unfamiliar creature, She runs back and forth, playing a game of tag with the sea. She flirts with the danger of the crashing waves... but is in love with what it holds beneath its surface. She bravely runs to meet the incoming wave as it reaches for the sky, towering over her, and suddenly pulling her in. I see her tumble her way through the waves, fighting back its unforgiving pull I make my way further and further into the sea attempting to catch her tiny hand or her little feet but the closer I get the further it pulls her I can see her body, floating through the water, she lets the current pull her now it’s as if she no longer has the energy to fight it’s as if she has given up or she’s working with it until it’s pull can no longer harm her to make her way back to shoreup I dive now, unsure of which, and unwilling to take the risk. As I fight against the seas mighty push I feel myself being pulled in, called, and I stop moving It’s not that I’ve run out of energy or that I’m working with it It’s that it speaks to me, it knows me, and I know I am safe. I arrive at what I know must have been my destination, although I hadn’t known it at the time. And the creature is there too She approaches me now and I look into her familiar brown eyes I see pain shielded and strength, unforgiving. “You don’t recognize me, yet, do you?” She asks … It is in that moment that all is made clear She is me She is the me I thought I had lost long ago at battle She is me She is strong She is smiling She is unafraid She is undaunted, She is me. “You never lost me,” she says “I just had to go away until you were ready or needed me.” She’s the piece that’s been missing for so long and now that I’ve found her I embrace her fiercely … and she dissolves. Confounded by the strangeness of it all I demand to wake up from this dream. “BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!” I bolt upright in bed and make my way to the bathroom, now, looking in the mirror, I see her. And I know her, as if she had never been lost. She is happy, she is courageous, she fought the battle all along, and now that she returns, meaning she has won. I celebrate her bravery, her strength, her patience, her roots, her ability, her hard work. I celebrate her because finally I see her, and I understand now all she has worked through and just how amazing she is for not giving up. I celebrate me because... finally, I see me.