a mantra, an anchor

from three years ago; still relevant

I’m free to be me. I’m free to swell and free to shrink. I’m free to shapeshift, to shapeseize, to cease shape. I’m free to take up space and I’m free to disappear. I’m free to breathe deep and free to reject air. I’m free to pray and free to doubt. I’m free to reach for God and touch the part of Them that undoes my hunger. I’m free to let God touch me and reopen my thirst. I’m free to stand still enough to feel goodness surround me and I’m free to run into thick darkness. I’m free to stay and free to leave. I’m free to have and free to lose. I’m free to trust and free to grieve. I’m free to have a safe house, a lovehouse, a good house. I’m free to reject all wrongness, no matter its source. I’m free to invite and to disinvite. I’m free to not get out of bed when I can’t and free to try my best to face the day. I’m free to eat what makes my body feel good and free to stop eating when I’m no longer hungry. I’m free to to drink wine and free to drink water instead. I’m free to dance alone and free to dance in a crowd full of bodies moving. I’m free to make it my priority to give myself what I need. I’m free to understand that I’m my own responsibility. I’m free to take care of my body and my mind, no matter what that looks like. I’m free to redraft my life as many times as I feel like. I’m free to say no from my heart. I’m free to say yes with my whole body. I’m free to stop apologizing for being myself and free to apologize sincerely when I’m wrong. I’m free to overwrite my old understandings and free to delete those drafts. I’m free to grow and leave dead selves behind, carrying nothing; and free to carry all my relevant histories with me. I’m free to listen to music in the dark and close my eyes. I’m free to seek counsel and free also to reject what feels unfitting. I’m free to unscrew the world from its axes, to unsubscribe from conforming, to uproot myself from everything outside. I’m free to ground myself in my spirit. I’m free to be inside myself and hear my head, all loud and clear and also free to escape my head; to put it on the table and deny my eyes. I’m free to write and free to read.  I’m free to be wrong and to be right. I’m free to forgive and free to refuse. I’m free to remember and free to forget. I’m free to be furious and free to purge all my rage. I’m free to understand my childselves and give all of them what we lacked. I’m free to reparent myself as many times as necessary. I’m free to heal. I’m free to love and free to not. I’m free to know better and not yet feel capable of doing better. I’m free to know better and immediately begin to do better. I’m free to reject shame and to understand that it does not belong to me. I’m free to truly grasp myself as the final frontier. I’m free to know that nothing that has ever tried to undo me has succeeded and it’s for a reason. I’m free to remember what it felt like and free to know for a fact what was not my fault. I’m free to understand that my life is changing lives. I’m free to understand that I am already taken care of. I’m free to realize that I’m older than even the most senior of all my wounds, wiser than all my darks, more powerful than all my shortcomings. I’m free to move with force and free to stand in confidence. I’m free to work and free to rest. I’m free to yell out of a wound and free to talk from my soft core. I’m free to try new things and I’m free to stay within my known limits. I’m free to see myself for who I am in flesh and under it: unstoppable, boundless, fearless, unshakeable, unsinkable. I’m free to be the best version of me there is and I’m free to be less than the best. I’m free to reject what doesn’t serve me and I’m free to entertain it. I’m free to hug my friends and free to love them and love them and love them. I’m free to offer myself unabridged and free to rescind that offer. I’m free to test the elasticity of known words — like family, like space, like home. I’m free to make more room and more room and more room, both inside and outside myself. I’m free to understand grace as inexhaustible and free too, to let grace rest and be idle. I’m free to drain bad blood. I’m free to not-know. I’m free to give up and free to keep going. I’m free to forgive myself, no matter how many times that is necessary. I’m free to understand that no matter where I am or how far away I stray from myself, I am always welcome back home. I’m free to not wait any longer and to instead, free myself, be myself and feel at home in that freed self now.