day 401 – you + me

So, I’m participating in a little thing called the “Fall in Love with You” challenge over on the good ol’ instagram and today’s prompt, day 12, is “your passion.”

And so, here’s what I know…
My passions are this: you + me.

My passion went from being a slow-burning build up, to a fire that cannot be tamed.

My passion has been discovering myself, what I like, what I don’t like, what areas I want to explore, what areas are best left alone, who I am, what I want, and ultimately where I want to go from here.

I literally spent all of my 20’s trying to be everything and everyone but me. Looking back, I really was an identity fraud of sorts. It wasn’t intentional… at least it didn’t start out that way, it just kind of snowballed and gained momentum as the years went by.

I mean, I was good at certain aspects and roles in my life, but when I would lay my head down each night, all I knew was that I was lost, miserable, and basically a shell of a person, hollowed out entirely and no real grasp or desire to recapture any potential I once had.

I was good at maintaining a personal narrative full of redundancies and self-pity, and even better at complaining but never moving myself into action. It cost me lots of friends, but even more so, it cost me a complete loss of identity.

So, over the last 13+ months, I’ve patiently unlearned all my destructive behaviors and replaced them with creating the person I am still becoming at this very moment.

I’ve been picking up bits and pieces of the identity I competely destroyed and abandoned, and am continuously falling in love with myself more and more each day.

That being said, the more I continue to better myself and really become an example + living proof that we can and do recover, the more I find myself finding my voice as well as a path to the future: which is where you come in.

As I become the best person I can be, I become more determined to both nurture myself AND give myself to those who need it. A little “puff, puff, pass” if you will, about inhaling all of life’s blessings, and wanting to share/pass them on to others.

*~Getting naturally high on life, if you want to get literal~*

I’ve become increasingly passionate about accepting how beYOUtiful I really am, as well as how uplifting + empowering our sober commUNITY is; and all of these things are JUST. GETTING. STARTED.

My passion is something greater than myself, and I’ve never felt more alive and/or fulfilled than I do now. Showing up, speaking out, helping others, encouraging others, LOVING others is what/where I was destined to be all along.

So if ANYTHING good has come out of my past, it is all of these things, and I am grateful for them every single millisecond.

Here’s to you.
Here’s to me.
Here’s to us.

Here’s to the future; may it be wild and bright and limitless.