Fostered to Flourish

This is an emotional post. Truly, I should be scheduling another appointment with my therapist, but putting pen to paper, or rather fingers to keys, should get me through to next week…

A few nights ago, as my partner and I settled into bed, I started crying. Like scrunching-my-face, holding-my-breath crying. I was trying so hard to silence myself and keep them from noticing–kinda hard to do when you’re less than six inches apart–but alas, they rolled over, confused yet comforting, and scooped me up, telling me to “let it out.” About four hours prior I had just shared with them that I applied to change my name. You’d think that having been with someone for four years, the thought of changing my name would be less traumatic, but honestly, it only gets more terrifying.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “You don’t have to change your name.” True, I do not. And however confusing this may sound, I want to change my name. For reasons I might share at another time, me taking my partner’s name would mean the world to them. And for me? Well, I never really felt like I belonged to anyone or or anything; I never really felt like I had a place that was mine. Even now, I struggle with being messy or leaving clothes on the floor because I have always been in transit–either moving a lot as a kid, living in someone else’s house in foster care, or changing dorms each year in college. So the thought of sharing a name with someone, well, that’s very special. However, the excitement I have is also shadowed by anxiety and a sense of lost identity–feelings I am all too familiar with. Many people in my life don’t even know this, but I’ve had two other names prior to my soon-to-be married name.

When I was 17 years old, enthusiastically applying for college and any grant or scholarship I could get my hands on, I discovered my name wasn’t legally M.S., which is what I had been referred to for my whole life up until that point. In fact, the government basically said, “We have no record of this person.” In what felt like a matter of milliseconds, I now needed to assume this new identity as a person named M.E. in order to go to college. It took me over a year to adjust to a new last name and also spelling my first name differently than I had for as long as I can remember. I never realized that this experience was as traumatic as it was until very recently. As I entered college, bright-eyed and ready to take on the world, I was also still figuring out who M.E. was going to be. In retrospect, it was probably the most ideal time to reinvent myself and figure out how M.E. interacted with the world, but I can now see that this shift in identity held more significance than I ever imagined it would.

So, as I laid in my wife’s arms that night, I let it all out. I wept out of excitement, out of fear and out of love. I understood that all these feelings can co-exist, and I cried some more. It was in that moment that my wife said to me, “You will always be M.S. and you will always be M.E., but now you also get to be M.T. You are not losing those people, you are evolving.”

Mic. Drop.

And that, my friends, is why I married her. She accepts me for who I was, who I am, and who I am going to be. It was this one statement that quite literally lifted the weight of 10,000 bricks of anxiety off my chest and allowed my heart to rest.

The reality is, no matter where I go, or what I do…

M.S. was the girl who grew up in an unstable environment. She grew up very quickly, did not have a lot of friends and entered foster care at the tender age of 12. Though she changed quite a bit throughout the years, she was always a foster kid with baggage she didn’t know how to unpack. So, she avoided it and focused on school. She struggled mentally and went many years with undiagnosed anxiety and an eating disorder. She was hurting. She is me.

M.E. was a young woman who wanted nothing more than to experience normalcy and live her life to the fullest. She travelled the world, she learned new skills, she kissed boys, and then she realized maybe she wanted to kiss girls, too. She opened herself up to experiences in life and love, and never said no to anything. She was fearless and inspirational. She is me.

M.T. is a woman in bloom who is still learning that healing is not linear. She is prioritizing her happiness and choosing to focus on her health. She is no longer forcing herself to work a job that dims her light, or cater to people who don’t prioritize her needs. She is spontaneous and still craves adventure. She is not sure where she will be in the next few years, but she knows who she wants to be there with. She is evolving. She is me.

I’m still learning that’s the beauty of life. We experience it in chapters; in different versions of ourselves. We learn and we grow, and we expand our heart’s capacity for love; love for ourself and others. Getting married has taught me that. It has taught me that my past does not define my present or my future. This is especially true when you are standing at the altar, in front of a room full of people from each of these chapters. People who knew M.S. and M.E. and are excited to meet M.T. It’s surreal and makes so much sense all at the same time.

So, maybe now that I can see others accept these unique versions of me, so can I. Self-acceptance is something I, myself, like many others around the world, struggle with on a daily basis. Accepting that I am enough has always been a challenge. It’s why I overwork myself, it’s why I have shut people out in order to protect myself from feeling inadequate or unworthy. But I don’t want to do that anymore. I know I am worthy and my story means something; maybe not to everyone, but to some, and I am learning to be okay with that. I avoided writing and sharing my thoughts for so long because I felt like others would judge me or make me feel like none of what I have to say matters. I am choosing to make it matter and I am choosing to accept that I am enough. Every. Single. Version.

So, that is what I am focusing on in this chapter of my life. I am focusing on contentedness and empathy. I am evolving into a new person and shedding my skin of a past self, that is hard work and I deserve grace. You deserve grace, too. If you feel alone in your journey of self-discovery (or re-discovery), you deserve gentleness. Be kind to yourself and remember that healing is not linear. You will have lows, but you will have some incredible highs that make this crazy ride of life so, so worth it.

Tell me, what are some things helping you discover yourself?