THANK YOU FOR 100 SUBSCRIBERS!!

A Word of Gratitude and A Brief Snapshot of the Present and Future

I want to take this time to express my endless gratitude and appreciation for having reached the milestone of 100 subscribers on Substack. Even with having 6.9k followers on Twitter, I honestly can’t believe that this many people really want to hear what I have to say on a regular basis. I always had this innate need to put pen to paper (or, most recently, fingers to keyboard) to immortalize my innermost thoughts and musings, sometimes for the world to see, other times for my eyes only. Every writer has their “thing” – their signature themes, modes of expression, topics of discussion, symbols, motifs, the thing that drives their work. Mine? Probably the pinned tweet in my Twitter bio. 

This kind of makes me cringe now, but the sentiment and the intent behind it are all the same. My creative works and modes of expression are almost solely rooted in the bittersweetness of life: seeing the blessings, sorting through the sorrows, and finding pockets of beauty in all of it – dancing through it, if you will. 

That statement truly embodies everything I’ve been going through as of late; since being truly intentional about putting God in the center of my life, as well as finally being earnest and unapologetic about my identity, my goals, and my dreams. To delve deeper, this year is the year I’ve finally begun to…for lack of a better phrase, expand into myself. I have spent so much seemingly endless time and effort (and, yes, even money at times) trying to essentially become someone else. What I’ve realized is that I wasn’t really trying to become someone else (although, within me there are pieces of every woman I’ve ever admired or revered) – rather, I was meeting my real self halfway: the ideal, yet attainable self I’ve been dreaming about for as long as I can remember. 

See, there are certain moments in my life when I am lulled into a trance of sorts – often by my own volition – where I find myself looking at myself, living as my dream self. It often occurs when I’m listening to certain songs, working out, or driving. I’ll put “positions” by Ariana Grande or “Bed Chem” by Sabrina Carpenter on while I’m plugging away on the Stair Climber, and a dream world unfolds in which I am nothing short of a star. I’m typically wearing something sparkly and iridescent, and all eyes follow me in a daze, stares full of admiration and reverence and desire. All ears listening, all lips smiling. 

Or, I’ll be driving home from school, sunset hanging in the backdrop, and Stevie Nicks and Don Henley are crooning the lyrics to one of my favorite love songs of all time, “Leather and Lace”: 

I need you to love me 

I need you today 

Give to me your leather

Take from me my lace 

and my mind travels to a vision of me in the warm, loving embrace of the love of my life. His face often changes in these dream sequences, yet it can best be described as an amalgamation of all the men I’ve ever “Loved™”. His arms are strong and formidable around me, his lips tender, his body dominant, protective, and loving, our lives together full of joy and babies and blessings. 

It took me a while, but I finally figured out the basis for these visions and where they came from: through these visions, I was being transported to the plane of existence on which my ideal self is living my ideal life. 

"I’d emerged from my isolation…I was borne by an impulse so powerful…I was possessed by a wild joy that was heedless of all else.”

-Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

In Psalm 82:6, we are told, “You are gods, you are sons of the Most High.” We are also implored by Christ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you…for everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” in Matthew 7:7-8. Another quote with an author unknown to me also comes to mind, loosely stated, “I know that the love that I want exists, because I exist, and that love is inside of me.” Kneeling before Christ, opening myself to the divine, loving, spiritual influence of the Universe, and unapologetically voicing my desires has made my dreams finally start coming true. Many of these dreams are not even earthside yet, but they have become so sharp, so clear in my mind, that there is simply no other possibility than the certainty of their existence. Everything I prayed for in the murkier period of my waiting season has, one by one, slowly started to come true – even the people around me have begun to take notice of a change in me; the inner fire within me has been stoked and cared for and grown from embers into a steady, rolling flame, and it has had a profound impact on myself and those I care about. I am emerging as a known leader and lover. 

Probably the most significant realization of all – in my almost lifelong quest for love, I’m finally figuring out that I don’t need to search for any one man (or love in general). As I stated earlier, the love I want exists, because I exist, and that love resides inside of me. I used to hate my emotionality, my impulsiveness, my perpetual mental and emotional game of tug of war, but I’ve realized that those things are what make me, me. There’s a moment in one of my favorite movies, Erin Brockovich (played by the incomparable Julia Roberts); based on the true story of the eponymous woman, Erin has unexpectedly become a big part in the takedown of a corrupt gas and oil magnate that has been sinking its claws into a small town and making its residents deathly ill. Her boyfriend hates how much time she spends away from the family, working on her destiny, and she responds by saying something along the lines of, “This is the first time people really care about what I have to say. When I talk, people listen now, and I didn’t have that before.” That perfectly encapsulates where I’m at; where I am, specifically, in this phase of my life – the phase in which I elevate from this current plane to the next, where my dream self living my dream life resides. 

And the funny thing is, these dreams – mental expressions of my reality, actually – aren’t all that extraordinary. I will make a general yet significant mark on the world (how, exactly? I’m still unsure about that part). I will “fall in love”, in the sense that my high frequency of divine love will attract that in someone else, and we’ll get married and have incredible sex and have babies and all that jazz. I will utilize my intelligence, talents, and gifts to create a lasting impact on people’s lives and to give back on my community. Amazing assertions, yes, but most definitely not impossible. It was only up until a few months ago that I actually believed those things could happen. And now (although I still have my brief moments of anxiety, nervousness, or compulsive, weightless doubt) I know that they already have. 

P.S.: if anyone has bothered to read to the bottom (lol), and if you happen to be a Twin Peaks fan, please shoot me a DM!! I’m on episode 2 of season 1, I’m already obsessed, and I need someone to commiserate with. My favorite characters so far are Audrey Horne and Shelley Johnson, they’re both gorgeous and ador(k)able.