KEEPING MY ROOTS!

Humanity has this bad habit of trying to wipe the slate clean and act like the past never happened. People love to just plant a new seed, move on to a better, brighter land, and pretend they didn't leave a mess behind. They suck the ground dry around their old lives and just split. But cutting away your roots, your pain, your trauma, and your heartbreak doesn't make you healed—it just makes you empty. I don't want to sever that connection. I want to stand right in it, learn from the lessons, and actually grow from them.

If you don't do the work to understand your own past, you lose your humanity. You become the kind of cynical person who stands in a crowded line and scoffs at the struggling stranger next to you. My own pain brought me to an ugly place briefly. I lost control, let my anxiety run the show, and turned my feelings into arguments and deformed weapons. I truly didn't like the man I saw in the mirror, and that version of me had to die because he wasn't who I wanted to reflect to the world. But I'm not going to pretend he wasn't there. I'm putting my head down, going to therapy, making that budget, getting healthier, and facing the reality instead of hiding from it.

Sitting down, talking, listening, and actually trying to understand each other—that is what being human is supposed to be about. The truth is, the majority of us are dealing with the exact same traumas, pains, and frustrations with this unforgiving world. We aren't all that different; we are just all wearing our armor differently. Some people use humor as a shield, some use anger, and some just shut down through a screen.

The real evil we have to fight is our own cowardly selves—the part of us that wants to run away from the growing pains, hide behind stubbornness or cold labels, and reduce who we are just to escape the discomfort. I am wild and funny, and I love out loud with an abundance that means giving the shirt off my back or my last dollar. I’m not going to shrink myself anymore, but I’m also not going to run away from my mistakes. True strength is standing right where you are in the dirt, keeping the light on for the people you care about, and refusing to cut away the history that made you who you are.