I miss Brave Girl
I miss my old blog, Brave Girl. What she stood for, the simplicity of it all. Maybe what I miss more is that season of my life. In my early 20’s where all of this felt fresh & exciting. My future was a blank canvas. I set out to build something all my own I could be proud of. That others would come to & admire, feel less alone, or connect with a like-minded human. I had a passionate fervor toward creating & expressing myself wholeheartedly. It’s all I focused on & it was all under my altar-ego, Brave Girl. I reaped a lot of rewards & successes because of it, something I care deeply about.
And then the very thing that drove me to explore my inner workings, to say them aloud, is the very thing that made me clam up & not love it anymore. It’s the challenge of any journey. It’s why I like the beginnings best. The middle & end can be melancholy or change like a kaleidoscope. Suddenly you look up after staring down for so long & you don’t recognize what’s in front of you. It’s a completely different shape than the one you were trying to make (maybe the one you need, not the one you want).
A conversation with my mom years ago; I came home exasperated after some social event,
“Mom, I’m not that kind of girl.”
“It’s funny how we become the girl we said we’d never be,” she replied.
I never set out to share a filtered life, or to be on-trend, or to grow a following based on shallow pretenses. I became exactly what I said I would never be. I suppose it’s a good time to rebuild then. To pull that kaleidoscope back out, watch how the shapes change.
Image credit: Poem by Tess Guinery, an excerpt from her book The Moonflower Monologues
