Come Back to You

Brandee Jasmine at 16

Something happened.
I’m not sure what it was. Maybe you fell in love or love disappeared. Maybe you lost friends or decided to hold on to relationships. Maybe you got hurt and decided never again. I don’t know for sure what but *something* happened. And little by little, not overnight, you began to embrace the idea that you- in all of your youness- are insufficient for the task of being you.
Little by little you began to say less, to speak less frequently or only in prescribed ways, or only on certain topics or only when asked. You swallowed your voice, your words. You’d see something and want to say something but would remind yourself that your voice, your words, your ideas, your you were insignificant. So you’d stay silent. And you became accustomed to silence as a companion.
Little by little you began to disappear, to not be present, to not be seen, to hide in the shadows when you couldn’t find an excuse to not be there, to be invisible. You begged out of being highlighted, you squirmed in the midst of accolades, you pushed others into seats that were made for you. You bought into the concept of leading from behind and watched as folk who were hiding from their own inadequacies took reins they were never meant to have.
Little by little you gave up on your dreams. You looked up and out and they seemed so overwhelming, so big, so large. Like oversized clothes, you decided they would never fit you, so you threw them out, choosing instead something smaller, something more fitting.
Little by little you began to squeeze yourself into other people’s expectations, other people’s needs for you, other people’s interpretations of your life, other people’s limits of you.
And you began to think things like “whew, I need to pull back” and “I stay doing too much” and “is there a way to make this doable” and “less of me means more for them.”
And you began to believe that the little amounts of you that you allow yourself - the little voice you permit, the little light you let through, the little dreams you have, the little bitty you that you’ve pushed down and carved out - is still too much. So you “do your work” to grow smaller. You find therapists to help you figure out when to not speak. You find spiritualists to help you see meaningful dreams. You tell them you’re trying to grow, you don’t let them help you get bigger, grow out... or grow up.
Because, little by little, your goal in life became to stay little.
Maybe you don’t see it yet.
Maybe you see yourself as fully occupying the spaces you allow yourself to be in.
Maybe you see it as empowering others at the expense of your own power.
Maybe you think that considering yourself worthy of being yourself is self-aggrandizement and the world deserves better of you.

Your soul deserves better from you. You deserve better than to be crouched in crowded silent shadows, trying to carve away yourself so that you have room to push someone else towards the light that you don’t realize is coming from and for you. You deserve better than what you are allowing yourself to have.
I don’t know what happened to make you so afraid of you that you stopped believing in you.
I do know that your voice was never too loud.
I do know that your presence was never too much.
I do know that your dreams were never too big.
I do know that you are not an insufficient you, that you deserve to fill up every single millimeter of your life, of your body, of your being.
I do know that the whole universe misses your fullness, your whole being.
I do know that it’s time to tear down the walls you’ve constructed around your soul, to dismantle the limits you’ve placed around yourself such that you may be acceptable, to fill up the hole you’ve tried to disappear into, and be.
It’s time to be.
We desperately need you ... all of you.
Please.
Be you. Be all of you.
Please.
Be.