Unmasking: Choosing Me, Choosing Truth

Today I took another step forward.

Not in fear.
Not in hate.
But in truth.
And truth, for me, looks like finally choosing myself.

For so long, I believed love meant staying.
Staying small.
Staying quiet.
Staying agreeable.
Staying in something I had already outgrown.

But love — real love — doesn’t ask you to disappear.
It asks you to remember.

And today I remembered that my children will learn more from my self-respect than from my self-sacrifice. That pretending to be okay was never going to teach them their worth.

So I unmasked.

I told my truth — calmly, clearly, and with love.
I honored the home we built and the years we shared.
And then I honored myself by saying: I deserve to be seen.

The birds showed up in force today. Crows. Jays. Bitty babies. A butterfly that looked like it had a tail. Chipmunks reaching for my toes.
They see me.
Gaia sees me.
Source sees me.
And more importantly… I see me.

I’m not afraid of the shift.
Because I am the shift.

To anyone reading this who feels the nudge — you’re not crazy, ungrateful, or selfish. You’re remembering. And in the remembering, we rise.