destinylaharris

Tag: healing

  • 🖤 Between the Lines #13: To My Demons

    I think the scariest thoughts are rarely the loudest ones.

    The loud ones are easier to recognize.

    They sound wrong.

    Cruel.

    Obvious.

    You can point at them and say:

    That is not helping me.

    The quieter ones are harder.

    The ones that sound logical.

    Responsible.

    Realistic.

    The ones that know exactly which memories to pull out, which fears to touch, and which words will sound believable coming from your own voice.

    That’s what this poem is about for me.

    Not fighting some dramatic monster outside of myself.

    Living with the thoughts that know me well enough to sound like me.

    This is To My Demons.

    To My Demons

    You don’t knock.
    You never needed permission.

    You crawl in like smoke,
    settle into my lungs,
    make yourself at home
    inside the parts of me
    that are already tired.

    You speak softly.
    That’s how I know it’s you.

    You don’t threaten.
    You suggest.
    You remind.
    You replay everything
    I wish I could forget
    and call it self-awareness.

    You tell me I’m realistic.
    Prepared.
    Not naive like everyone else
    who still believes in light
    without conditions.

    You sound like me
    on my worst nights.
    You wear my memories
    like a second skin.

    I hate that.

    I hate how convincing you are.
    How you don’t need to shout
    to make me doubt
    whether staying is worth it.

    Some nights
    you sit beside me
    and count my failures
    like beads on a rosary.

    Some nights
    you tell me rest is dangerous.
    That hope is reckless.
    That peace is temporary
    and I should brace for the fall.

    You never push me.
    You don’t have to.

    You just wait
    until I’m tired enough
    to consider listening.

    And still—
    I wake up.

    Not because I want to.
    Not because I believe
    tomorrow will be better.

    I wake up because something in me
    refuses to hand you the last word.

    You hate that part of me.
    The quiet resistance.
    The way I keep breathing
    even when it feels pointless.

    You call it stubbornness.
    I call it survival.

    You can stay—
    because I know you will.

    But don’t confuse proximity
    with ownership.

    I am not cured.
    I am not fearless.
    I am not free of you.

    But I am still here.

    And that is the one thing
    you can never forgive me for.

    Between the Lines

    This poem makes the demons sound almost polite.

    And I think that is what makes them worse.

    They don’t crash through the door.

    They don’t scream.

    They don’t announce themselves as something dangerous.

    They already know where everything is.

    They’ve been there before.

    They know which memories hurt.

    Which fears still work.

    Which insecurities need almost no convincing at all.

    And they don’t have to sound like monsters.

    They just have to sound enough like me.

    “You don’t threaten. You suggest.”

    This might be the most important distinction in the entire poem.

    A threat is obvious.

    A suggestion can feel reasonable.

    The demons don’t say:

    Everything is hopeless.

    They say:

    Be realistic.

    They don’t say:

    Never trust anything good.

    They say:

    You’re just being prepared.

    They don’t say:

    Relive every painful thing that ever happened to you.

    They call it:

    Self-awareness.

    That’s the trick.

    They take fear and give it a respectable name.

    They take hypervigilance and call it wisdom.

    They take the expectation of pain and dress it up like preparation.

    And suddenly the thing hurting you sounds like the thing protecting you.

    That’s a dangerous voice to argue with.

    Especially when it sounds like your own.

    “You wear my memories like a second skin.”

    The demons in this poem don’t invent evidence.

    They use what already happened.

    That matters.

    Because fear gets a lot more convincing when it can point backward and say:

    See?

    See what happened last time.

    See what they did.

    See how badly that hurt.

    See why you shouldn’t relax.

    See why you shouldn’t trust this.

    See why peace is temporary.

    And the worst part is—

    sometimes the memories are completely real.

    The conclusion just isn’t always fair.

    Something happened before.

    That does not mean it has to happen again.

    Someone hurt you.

    That does not mean everyone will.

    You survived something terrible.

    That does not mean safety is a trick.

    But when your brain has receipts?

    It can make fear sound a whole lot like proof.

    “You just wait until I’m tired enough to consider listening.”

    I love this line because resistance takes energy too.

    Sometimes people talk about survival like it’s this huge, heroic act.

    Fighting.

    Winning.

    Standing tall.

    Refusing to break.

    But sometimes survival looks much less impressive from the outside.

    Sometimes you’re just tired.

    You don’t feel brave.

    You don’t feel hopeful.

    You don’t even necessarily believe tomorrow is going to be better.

    You just don’t make the decision tonight.

    That’s it.

    You keep going long enough to see another morning.

    And in this poem, that counts.

    It has to.

    Because there are nights when hope is too expensive.

    So the speaker doesn’t survive because she suddenly believes everything will be okay.

    She survives because something in her refuses to let the demons write the ending.

    “You call it stubbornness. I call it survival.”

    I really like that survival here is not pretty.

    It isn’t inspirational.

    There’s no dramatic music playing in the background.

    She is simply still here.

    And maybe stubbornness is underrated.

    Sometimes stubbornness is:

    No.

    You don’t get this.

    Not tonight.

    You can sit there.

    You can talk.

    You can replay every ugly memory you have.

    But you do not get the last word.

    There is something incredibly small about that kind of resistance.

    And incredibly powerful.

    “Don’t confuse proximity with ownership.”

    This is probably my favorite line in the second half.

    Because the poem does not end with the demons disappearing.

    That would be easier.

    It would also be dishonest.

    She says:

    You can stay—
    because I know you will.

    That isn’t surrender.

    It’s acknowledgment.

    There is a huge difference between saying:

    You exist.

    and saying:

    You own me.

    She isn’t cured.

    She isn’t fearless.

    She isn’t pretending the darkness packed a suitcase and moved out.

    It’s still there.

    But being near something does not mean belonging to it.

    Living with fear does not mean fear gets to make every decision.

    Having dark thoughts does not mean those thoughts get to define you.

    The demons can occupy space.

    They just don’t get the deed.

    Still Here

    I think that is where this poem ultimately lands.

    Not victory.

    Not healing wrapped up neatly with a bow.

    Not:

    I defeated my demons.

    Just:

    I am still here.

    And sometimes that is enough.

    There is something almost defiant about surviving without turning survival into something beautiful.

    Sometimes being alive does not feel triumphant.

    Sometimes it feels annoying.

    Messy.

    Exhausting.

    Stubborn.

    But the demons don’t get to choose what counts.

    They wanted the last word.

    They didn’t get it.

    Maybe tomorrow still won’t feel easy.

    Maybe the thoughts will still show up.

    Maybe peace will still feel temporary.

    But the poem ends with the one fact they cannot argue away:

    I am still here.

    And maybe that is the whole point.

    Until next time,

    — Destiny

    P.S. What’s something your fear has tried to convince you was “realistic” when it was really just fear talking? 🖤

  • 🖤 Between the Lines #12: Song of the Sirens

    There are some things you know are bad for you before you ever touch them.

    That doesn’t always stop you from wanting them.

    I think we like to imagine that once we’ve learned a lesson, we become immune to repeating it.

    Once you know what a red flag looks like, you’ll never walk toward one again.

    Once you’ve survived the fire, surely you’ll recognize the heat next time.

    Except people don’t really work like that.

    Sometimes you know exactly what something is—

    and it still sounds beautiful.

    That’s where this poem came from.

    Not from being unable to recognize danger.

    From recognizing it perfectly and having to decide whether you’re going to listen anyway.

    This is Song of the Sirens.

    Song of the Sirens

    He smiled like sin itself,
    and I forgot how to pray.

    Not because I stopped believing.

    Because some songs
    are louder than faith.

    They never tell you
    the Sirens don’t force anyone.

    They simply sing.

    The rest
    is a decision.

    I saw the rocks.

    I knew the stories.

    I knew how endings like this
    always ended.

    Bodies drifting.

    Dreams swallowed whole.

    Women like me
    mistaking hunger
    for destiny.

    Still—

    I stepped closer.

    There is something terrifying
    about wanting the thing
    you already know
    will undo you.

    Not because you’re foolish.

    Because loneliness
    has a remarkable way
    of making shipwrecks
    look like shorelines.

    His smile carried the same promise
    the sea always has.

    Come closer.

    You’ll finally understand.

    You won’t feel alone here.

    I almost believed him.

    Almost mistook
    being desired
    for being seen.

    Almost confused
    chemistry
    with safety.

    He smiled like sin itself,
    and somewhere in the distance
    the Sirens started singing.

    Not with voices.

    With possibility.

    With every version of my life
    that might have existed
    if I had ignored
    what my heart already knew.

    People think temptation
    looks like certainty.

    It doesn’t.

    It looks like curiosity.

    One more conversation.

    One more touch.

    One more reason
    to believe this time
    will be different.

    The ocean never asks
    for all of you at once.

    It takes you
    one step at a time.

    I stood at the water’s edge
    long enough
    to hear the music.

    Long enough
    to understand
    why sailors kept turning the ship.

    Long enough
    to know
    I wasn’t immune.

    Then I remembered—

    love had already taught me
    the difference
    between a lighthouse
    and a fire.

    One guides you home.

    The other only looks beautiful
    from far away.

    So I walked away.

    Not because the song stopped.

    It didn’t.

    I walked away
    because I finally understood

    that surviving

    sometimes sounds like

    leaving the music

    unfinished.

    Between the Lines

    This poem uses Sirens, but it isn’t really about Sirens.

    There’s no monster waiting on the rocks.

    No sailor tied to a mast.

    No literal song floating across the ocean.

    The Siren in this poem is possibility.

    It’s that dangerous little voice that asks:

    But what if?

    What if this one is different?

    What if I’m reading it wrong?

    What if I just stay a little longer?

    What if the thing that hurt me before could somehow become the thing that heals me now?

    And sometimes that question is enough to make us move closer to something we already know we should be walking away from.

    “They simply sing. The rest is a decision.”

    I really wanted this line in the poem because I didn’t want temptation to become something that happened to her.

    The Sirens aren’t dragging her into the ocean.

    She sees the rocks.

    She knows the stories.

    She understands exactly what could happen.

    And she still takes a step.

    That distinction matters.

    Because sometimes we talk about destructive patterns like we somehow lose all agency the second temptation appears.

    But there’s usually a space between hearing the song and reaching the rocks.

    Sometimes it’s tiny.

    Sometimes it’s painful.

    But it’s there.

    And that’s where the decision lives.

    “Loneliness has a remarkable way of making shipwrecks look like shorelines.”

    This is probably the line that sits closest to the center of the poem for me.

    Because loneliness changes perspective.

    Something doesn’t necessarily become safer just because you’re lonely.

    It can just start looking safer.

    Attention feels more meaningful.

    Chemistry feels more important.

    Being wanted starts feeling suspiciously similar to being understood.

    And suddenly something you would have recognized immediately from a distance begins looking like somewhere you could rest.

    That’s why the next lines matter too:

    Almost mistook
    being desired
    for being seen.

    Almost confused
    chemistry
    with safety.

    Those things are not interchangeable.

    Someone can want you without knowing you.

    You can have incredible chemistry with somebody who is terrible for you.

    Something can feel intense without being healthy.

    And sometimes learning that difference is expensive.

    Temptation doesn’t usually arrive screaming.

    I think we picture bad decisions as these huge dramatic moments.

    You stand at a crossroads.

    One path says GOOD IDEA.

    The other says THIS WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE.

    Then you knowingly choose disaster.

    😂

    Usually it’s much quieter than that.

    One more conversation.

    One more touch.

    One more reason
    to believe this time
    will be different.

    That’s how people end up farther into something than they ever planned to go.

    The ocean doesn’t ask for all of you at once.

    One step.

    Then another.

    Then another.

    Eventually you look behind you and realize the shoreline is much farther away than you thought.

    That part of the poem isn’t really about one person.

    It’s about patterns.

    The ways we negotiate with ourselves when we want something badly enough.

    The tiny permissions that become much bigger decisions.

    “I wasn’t immune.”

    I really like that she doesn’t walk away because she becomes stronger than the song.

    She doesn’t suddenly stop wanting it.

    She doesn’t stand at the water and think:

    Wow. I can’t believe I ever considered that.

    She understands why sailors turned their ships.

    She understands exactly why someone would keep listening.

    And she realizes she could too.

    There’s something more honest to me about that than pretending growth means temptation stops working.

    Sometimes growth is knowing:

    This could still get me.

    And making a different decision anyway.

    The lighthouse and the fire.

    love had already taught me
    the difference
    between a lighthouse
    and a fire.

    One guides you home.

    The other only looks beautiful
    from far away.

    This is the moment where the poem changes.

    Up until then, she is measuring the danger against desire.

    Then she remembers she has something else to compare it to.

    Not fantasy.

    Not possibility.

    Experience.

    She knows what it feels like when love is safe.

    And once you know that, intensity stops being quite as convincing.

    A fire can be beautiful.

    Warm.

    Mesmerizing.

    You can stare at it forever.

    That doesn’t mean you should walk into it.

    A lighthouse doesn’t ask you to burn.

    It helps you find your way home.

    Leaving the Music Unfinished

    The ending matters to me because the song never stops.

    I didn’t want it to.

    If the Sirens suddenly went silent, walking away wouldn’t mean very much.

    Of course she leaves if she no longer wants to stay.

    That isn’t the difficult choice.

    She leaves while she can still hear them.

    While possibility still exists.

    While some part of her still wonders what would happen if she took one more step.

    There’s no neat ending.

    No final conversation.

    No satisfying answer to every what if.

    She doesn’t stay long enough to learn how the story would have ended.

    And that’s the point.

    Sometimes we think closure means finishing something.

    Getting the answer.

    Having the conversation.

    Following it all the way through so we can finally know.

    But sometimes survival requires accepting that you are never going to know.

    Sometimes the safest ending is the one you deliberately refuse to finish.

    The song keeps playing.

    You just stop following it.

    Until next time,

    — Destiny

    P.S. Have you ever had to walk away from something even though part of you still wanted it? 🖤

  • Between the Lines #10: The Siren Who Could Not Sing

    There are some poems that start with an idea.

    And then there are some that quietly become about something much bigger while you’re writing them.

    The Siren Who Could Not Sing started with a simple question:

    What happens to a siren who can’t sing?

    Not one whose voice was stolen.

    Not one who eventually discovers some hidden, magical song.

    Just—

    a siren who cannot do the one thing everyone says a siren is supposed to do.

    And the more I sat with that idea, the less this poem became about sirens.

    Because I think a lot of us know what it feels like to live inside an expectation we were never able to meet.

    The Siren Who Could Not Sing

    They knew something was wrong
    the first time I opened my mouth
    and the sea stayed still.

    No sailors turned their heads.

    No ships changed course.

    No man forgot
    the name of the woman
    waiting for him at home.

    Nothing happened.

    My sisters sang
    and entire oceans
    leaned closer.

    I sang—

    and heard only
    the small, broken sound
    of breath.

    A siren
    without a voice.

    There are cruelties
    even mythology
    doesn’t prepare you for.

    To be born
    with a name
    that promises something

    your body
    cannot give.

    They tried to teach me.

    Again.

    Again.

    Breathe deeper.

    Try harder.

    You aren’t trying.

    As though effort
    could grow music
    inside a throat
    that had never learned
    how to hold it.

    Eventually,

    they stopped asking me
    to sing with them.

    That hurt more.

    I would sit
    on the rocks
    and watch my sisters

    become everything
    we were created to be.

    Beautiful.

    Terrible.

    Unavoidable.

    Their songs
    crossed miles of water.

    Mine couldn’t cross
    my own lips.

    So I became useful
    in other ways.

    I watched the horizon.

    Counted ships.

    Collected what the ocean
    returned.

    Learned the names
    of constellations
    because stars
    never asked me
    to perform.

    Still,

    I hated them sometimes.

    My sisters.

    Not because
    they could sing.

    Because they never had
    to wonder

    who they would be
    if they couldn’t.

    Do you know
    what it does to you

    to lose something
    everyone insists
    is the reason
    you exist?

    You start believing
    absence
    is the same thing
    as failure.

    You start introducing yourself
    with an apology.

    You start thinking

    almost

    is another word
    for worthless.

    Then one night,

    a ship broke apart
    against the rocks.

    There had been no song.

    No seduction.

    Only a storm
    with no interest
    in who deserved
    to survive it.

    A sailor washed ashore.

    Alive.

    Barely.

    He looked at me
    and begged,

    “Please.”

    I opened my mouth.

    Nothing.

    Of course.

    So I didn’t sing.

    I pulled him
    from the water.

    Stayed beside him
    until morning.

    And when he woke,

    he didn’t ask
    why I had no song.

    He didn’t ask
    what kind of siren
    couldn’t lure a man
    to his death.

    He only said,

    “You saved me.”

    I had never heard
    those words before.

    All my life,

    I had been taught
    that a siren’s power

    was measured
    by how many people
    she could make
    follow her voice.

    No one ever told me

    there might be power
    in refusing
    to let someone drown.

    My sisters still sing.

    The sea still listens.

    Ships still tremble
    when their voices
    cross the water.

    And me?

    I am still silent.

    Some things
    do not grow back
    just because
    we finally understand
    their absence.

    But I no longer
    open my mouth
    and wait for music

    to prove
    I belong here.

    I am a siren.

    Not despite
    the silence.

    Not because of it.

    I simply am.

    And perhaps
    the cruelest thing
    they ever taught me

    was that the thing
    I was missing

    was the thing

    that made me

    whole.

    The part of this poem that sits heaviest with me isn’t actually the silence.

    It’s this:

    You aren’t trying.

    Because how many times do we say some version of that to people?

    Try harder.

    Push yourself.

    Everybody else can do it.

    You just need to practice.

    You just need to want it badly enough.

    As though effort is some magical currency we can exchange for ability.

    As though wanting something badly enough guarantees our bodies, our minds, or our circumstances will cooperate.

    Sometimes they don’t.

    And sometimes the cruelest thing you can do to someone who is already struggling is convince them that their inability is proof they didn’t try hard enough.

    The siren spends years believing there must be something wrong with her because everyone around her possesses the thing she is missing.

    Her sisters don’t even have to think about singing.

    They simply open their mouths—

    and the world responds.

    Meanwhile, she keeps trying to become something that was never going to happen.

    And I think comparison hurts the most when you’re comparing yourself to people who have never had to question the thing you’re fighting so hard to become.

    They don’t know what it feels like to sit on the rocks and watch.

    They don’t know what it feels like to be almost what everyone expected.

    They don’t have to wonder:

    Who am I if I can’t do the thing everyone says makes me who I am?

    That question is the real heart of this poem.

    Because we attach identity to things constantly.

    A good mother does this.

    A successful person looks like this.

    A strong person handles things this way.

    A woman should be this.

    A man should provide that.

    A writer should write like this.

    A body should be able to do that.

    And when we don’t fit whatever definition we were handed?

    We start shrinking ourselves around the missing piece.

    We introduce ourselves with an apology.

    We explain ourselves before anyone even asks.

    We start treating different like it means defective.

    That’s why I didn’t want her voice to magically appear at the end.

    I could have done that.

    The sailor could have awakened, she could have opened her mouth, and suddenly some beautiful song could have poured out.

    It would have been neat.

    Hopeful.

    Very fairy-tale.

    And I would have hated it.

    Because then the poem would still be saying she needed the song.

    She would simply have suffered long enough to finally earn it.

    No.

    She never sings.

    The thing she cannot do at the beginning is still something she cannot do at the end.

    Because sometimes healing doesn’t give you back what you lost.

    Sometimes acceptance doesn’t fix anything.

    Sometimes understanding yourself better does not magically change the thing you had to learn to live without.

    And you are still allowed to be whole.

    That’s why this part matters so much to me:

    I am a siren.

    Not despite
the silence.

    Not because of it.

    I simply am.

    Not despite.

    Because even that can become another kind of cage.

    Look how successful she became despite this.

    Look how strong she is despite that.

    Look what she accomplished even though she is missing something.

    Sometimes I think we become so obsessed with turning every difference into an inspirational story that we accidentally keep reinforcing the idea that there was something wrong with the person to begin with.

    She doesn’t need to become extraordinary because she cannot sing.

    She doesn’t need her silence to become a superpower.

    She doesn’t need to prove that losing one thing gave her something better.

    She is simply a siren.

    Full stop.

    And then there’s the sailor.

    All her life, she has been told that a siren’s power is measured by destruction.

    How many sailors turn their ships.

    How many men follow the voice.

    How many bodies the ocean takes.

    Then someone finally looks at her and says:

    You saved me.

    And suddenly the definition of power changes.

    Maybe the thing everyone around you values isn’t actually the thing that deserves to be valued.

    Maybe being good at what your world rewards doesn’t automatically make that thing good.

    Maybe you can spend your entire life believing you failed a test without ever stopping to ask:

    Who wrote the test?

    Our silent siren cannot lure sailors toward the rocks.

    But when one reaches them anyway—

    she pulls him out.

    And for the first time, she understands that she was measuring herself with a ruler she never chose.

    That might be my favorite thing hiding between these lines.

    She doesn’t finally become the siren everyone expected.

    She stops needing to.

    And I think there is an enormous difference between the two.

    Maybe becoming whole isn’t always about finding the missing piece.

    Maybe sometimes it’s realizing you were never a collection of missing pieces in the first place.

    Until next time,

    —Destiny

    P.S. Have you ever spent so much time trying to become who you thought you were supposed to be that you forgot to ask who you actually were?

  • Between the Lines #9: The Missing Second

    Some poems begin with a story already attached to them.

    This one didn’t.

    It started with one line:

    The clock skipped a tick
    and my heart skipped a beat.

    I liked the way those two things mirrored each other—the clock and the heart both missing something at exactly the same moment.

    But then I started thinking about the second itself.

    If the clock skipped it…

    where did it go?

    And what if it wasn’t actually empty?

    What if, somewhere between one tick and the next, time stopped long enough to show you everything that could still happen?

    That question became The Missing Second.

    The Missing Second

    The clock skipped a tick
    and my heart skipped a beat.

    For one second,

    time forgot
    what it was supposed to do.

    The room stopped breathing.

    The curtains hung
    perfectly still.

    The dust suspended itself
    in the sunlight

    like even gravity
    had been told

    to wait.

    And somewhere

    between one second
    and the next,

    I lived an entire life.

    I saw myself older.

    Laugh lines
    where worry used to live.

    Silver threaded
    through my hair.

    Hands that finally stopped
    apologizing
    for taking up space.

    I saw people
    I haven’t met yet.

    Rooms
    I’ve never entered.

    Photographs
    that haven’t been taken.

    I heard laughter
    belonging to voices

    I don’t know.

    Yet.

    I watched myself
    lose people.

    Find others.

    Break.

    Heal.

    Break again.

    I learned
    that some promises last.

    Some don’t.

    Some people leave
    without becoming villains.

    Some people stay
    without needing to become heroes.

    I forgave things
    I still swear
    I never will.

    I stopped waiting
    for apologies

    that were never coming.

    I looked into a mirror

    and recognized

    the woman

    looking back.

    For once,

    I didn’t ask her

    what was wrong with her.

    I asked

    if she was happy.

    She smiled.

    Then—

    tick.

    The curtains moved.

    The dust fell.

    The world continued

    as though nothing

    had happened.

    No one looked up.

    No one asked

    where I’d been.

    The clock simply moved

    from one second

    to another.

    But I couldn’t.

    Because somewhere

    inside the second

    that never existed,

    I had met

    every version of myself

    I could still become.

    And suddenly

    I understood

    why my heart

    had skipped too.

    For one impossible moment,

    it wasn’t afraid

    of running out of time.

    It had simply

    seen

    how much life

    could still fit

    inside it.

    Between the Lines

    For a poem about the future, I didn’t want The Missing Second to predict anything.

    There are no names.

    No specific places.

    No exact future waiting at the end of it.

    Instead, there are pieces.

    People I haven’t met.

    Rooms I haven’t entered.

    Photographs that haven’t been taken.

    Voices I don’t recognize.

    I think that’s what makes the future in this poem feel possible to me. It isn’t promising that everything works out exactly the way I want it to.

    Actually, it very specifically doesn’t.

    I lose people.

    I break.

    I heal.

    And then I break again.

    Because seeing an entire life inside that second wouldn’t mean seeing a perfect one.

    It would mean seeing a whole one.

    There’s a difference.

    Yet.

    There’s one tiny word sitting by itself in this poem:

    I heard laughter
    belonging to voices

    I don’t know.

    Yet.

    I gave “Yet.” its own line because I wanted it to interrupt the thought.

    “I don’t know” feels complete.

    “I don’t know yet” doesn’t.

    That one word leaves something open.

    Somewhere in the future could be a person I’ve never met who will eventually become impossible to imagine my life without.

    There could be a room I’ve never entered that someday feels like home.

    There could be a photograph I haven’t taken yet that someday becomes one I can’t look at without remembering everything surrounding it.

    I can’t know any of that from where I’m standing now.

    That’s the point.

    Yet.

    Not Everyone Has to Be a Villain or a Hero

    These are probably some of my favorite lines in the poem:

    Some people leave
    without becoming villains.

    Some people stay
    without needing to become heroes.

    I didn’t want the future life inside that second divided neatly between people who stayed and people who hurt me.

    Some people are only meant to exist in certain parts of our lives.

    Someone leaving doesn’t automatically erase everything that came before it.

    And someone staying doesn’t mean they have to save us.

    Sometimes people are simply part of the story for however long they’re part of it.

    I think there’s something peaceful about imagining a future where I understand that.

    The Woman Waiting Inside the Second

    Then there’s the mirror.

    Of everything that happens inside this enormous life squeezed into one impossible second, this is one of the quietest moments:

    I looked into a mirror

    and recognized

    the woman

    looking back.

    For once,

    I didn’t ask her

    what was wrong with her.

    I asked

    if she was happy.

    She smiled.

    She doesn’t tell me what happens.

    She doesn’t explain how I got there.

    She doesn’t warn me about anything coming.

    She just smiles.

    And I think I like it better that way.

    Because the missing second isn’t supposed to hand me a map of my future.

    It’s only supposed to show me that there is one.

    Then—Tick.

    The clock eventually has to move again.

    I knew from the beginning that whatever happened inside that second couldn’t follow the speaker back into the room.

    The curtains move.

    The dust falls.

    Nobody notices anything happened.

    The clock simply continues doing what clocks do.

    But the person watching it doesn’t return quite as easily.

    That’s why the opening line comes back in a different way at the end.

    At first:

    The clock skipped a tick
    and my heart skipped a beat.

    It sounds like something is wrong.

    By the end, we finally understand why the heart followed the clock.

    For one impossible moment,

    it wasn’t afraid

    of running out of time.

    It had simply

    seen

    how much life

    could still fit

    inside it.

    And that’s what this poem eventually became for me.

    It isn’t really about stopping time.

    It’s about having more of it.

    Not knowing how much.

    Not knowing what happens inside it.

    Not knowing who comes, who goes, what hurts, what heals, or who I’ll be when I reach the other side of all those years.

    Just knowing there are still blank spaces.

    There are still people I don’t know.

    There are still photographs that haven’t been taken.

    There are still versions of me I haven’t met.

    The clock is going to keep ticking either way.

    But maybe every once in a while, it’s worth remembering how much life can happen between one tick and the next.

    Until next time,
    —Destiny

    P.S. If time skipped one second and let you glimpse your future, would you look—or would you rather not know?

  • Between the Lines #8: Little Star

    Some poems start with an idea.

    Others start with a line you’ve known so long that you almost don’t hear the words anymore.

    “Twinkle, twinkle, little star…”

    It’s one of the first songs a lot of us learn as children. We sing it before we know what stars actually are. Before we understand distance. Before we understand that the light reaching us might have been traveling for years.

    And before we learn that sometimes, the thing we’re looking at may already be gone.

    That thought stuck with me.

    Because there’s something strangely human about that.

    So I followed it.

    And it got darker than the nursery rhyme. 😅

    Little Star

    Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

    I used to wonder
    what you are.

    Before I learned
    that some lights

    are already dead.

    That sometimes
    we spend our whole lives

    looking at something

    that disappeared
    centuries ago.

    No one tells children that.

    We point toward the sky
    and call it beautiful.

    Make wishes
    on burning things.

    Teach them
    to close their eyes

    and ask the universe

    for whatever
    their tiny hearts desire.

    I wonder

    how many wishes

    were sent

    to something

    that wasn’t there

    to receive them.

    Maybe that’s why
    mine never came true.

    I used to lie
    beneath my blankets

    and watch the stars
    through my window.

    I thought

    they were watching back.

    Guardians.

    Tiny holes in heaven

    letting the light through.

    I didn’t know yet

    that darkness

    was the natural state
    of things.

    That light

    had to fight

    just to reach us.

    Sometimes,

    I still look up.

    Not to wish.

    I stopped doing that
    a long time ago.

    Now I count

    the dead things

    still shining.

    One.

    Two.

    Three.

    There are too many.

    And I wonder

    how long

    a person can disappear

    before everyone else

    notices

    their light

    is only a memory.

    How many times

    have I smiled

    after something inside me

    had already gone dark?

    How many people

    have looked at me

    and thought,

    She’s doing so well.

    Because they were seeing

    light

    that left me

    years ago?

    Maybe we are all

    a little like stars.

    Carrying old versions
    of ourselves

    across impossible distances.

    Letting people

    make wishes

    on pieces of us

    that no longer exist.

    Twinkle, twinkle,

    little star.

    I finally know

    what you are.

    Proof

    that something

    doesn’t have to be alive

    for its absence

    to take years

    to reach us.

    Between the Lines

    What got me about the idea behind this poem wasn’t really the stars.

    It was the delay.

    The idea that light can keep traveling after its source has changed—or disappeared entirely.

    And I started thinking about how often people do that, too.

    There are versions of ourselves that other people continue to see long after we’ve stopped being them.

    Maybe they remember the version of you who tolerated things you don’t tolerate anymore.

    The version who trusted more easily.

    The version who was louder.

    Softer.

    Happier.

    More naive.

    Maybe they’re looking at who you were five years ago and assuming that person is still standing in front of them.

    And sometimes, it happens in reverse.

    Sometimes we’re the ones sending out old light.

    We smile.

    We go to work.

    We answer messages.

    We make jokes.

    We tell people we’re fine.

    And from where everyone else is standing, we might genuinely look fine.

    They aren’t necessarily ignoring what’s happening inside us.

    They may simply be seeing the light that reached them.

    That’s where the line—

    How many people
    have looked at me
    and thought,

    She’s doing so well.

    —came from.

    There’s something sad about realizing that someone can look directly at you and still be seeing an older version of you.

    But I don’t think Little Star is entirely about sadness.

    I think it’s also about change.

    We spend our lives leaving versions of ourselves behind.

    Some disappear quietly.

    Some take years to let go of.

    Some probably still exist in somebody else’s memory exactly as we were when they last knew us.

    And maybe that’s okay.

    Because the person I was isn’t necessarily gone just because I’m not her anymore.

    Some of her light made it here.

    I carry pieces of her.

    Other people carry pieces of her.

    And someday, the person I am right now will probably become another one of those distant versions too.

    Still visible.

    Still affecting something.

    Just no longer the whole story.

    Maybe that’s what I like most about the stars.

    We look up and think we’re seeing what is.

    Sometimes we’re actually seeing what was.

    And unless we look a little closer, we may never know the difference.

    Until next time,

    —Destiny

    P.S. Some things keep shining long after they’ve changed. Maybe people do, too.

  • Between the Lines #7

    The Dark

    I write about darkness a lot.

    Night.

    Shadows.

    Moonlight.

    Ghosts.

    The things that hide in corners and the things we carry where no one else can see them.

    If you’ve read much of my writing, you could probably assume I find some kind of comfort in the dark.

    And maybe sometimes I do.

    But then I wrote a poem that started with:

    I hate the dark.

    And I meant it.

    The Dark

    I hate the dark.

    It reminds me of myself.

    Not because I am cruel.

    Not because I was born
    wanting to swallow light.

    But because I’ve spent
    so much of my life
    learning how to survive
    where the sun
    couldn’t reach.

    People romanticize darkness.

    They give it stars.

    They give it moons.

    They write poems
    about how beautiful
    the night can be.

    They forget

    how cold it is.

    How quiet.

    How easy it is
    to mistake loneliness
    for peace.

    I know darkness intimately.

    I know the way
    it settles into a room
    before anyone notices.

    The way it convinces you
    that silence
    is the same thing
    as healing.

    The way it teaches you
    to become invisible
    just to make it
    through another day.

    I hate the dark.

    Because every time
    I walk into it,

    I meet another version
    of myself.

    The little girl
    who kept waiting
    for someone
    to come looking.

    The teenager
    who mistook hurting
    for relief.

    The woman
    who kept shrinking
    so other people
    could feel taller.

    They are all there.

    Patient.

    Waiting for me
    like ghosts
    that never learned
    how to leave home.

    Sometimes I wonder
    if Nyx recognizes me.

    If the goddess of night
    looks at me
    with something
    that almost resembles pity.

    Or maybe recognition.

    Maybe she knows
    that not everyone
    who carries darkness

    belongs to it.

    Maybe she knows
    there is a difference
    between becoming familiar
    with the night

    and calling it home.

    I hate the dark.

    Not because it reminds me
    of what I’ve survived.

    But because for so many years,

    I couldn’t tell

    where it ended—

    and where I began.

    Now,

    I’m learning
    the hardest thing
    I’ve ever had to learn:

    Darkness
    can shape you

    without defining you.

    And maybe

    that’s the first light

    I’ve ever trusted.

    I think sometimes we become so familiar with something that we stop realizing it isn’t supposed to feel like home.

    That can happen with sadness.

    With loneliness.

    With survival mode.

    With the parts of ourselves we built because, at the time, we needed them.

    Stay quiet.

    Don’t take up too much space.

    Don’t need too much.

    Don’t trust too easily.

    Keep going.

    Survive first.

    Feel it later.

    You do something long enough and eventually it stops feeling like something you do.

    It starts feeling like who you are.

    That’s the darkness in this poem.

    Not evil.

    Not something lurking beneath the bed.

    Not even necessarily sadness.

    Familiarity.

    That’s why I wrote:

    How easy it is
    to mistake loneliness
    for peace.

    There is a difference between being at peace and simply becoming accustomed to being alone with something.

    There is a difference between healing and going quiet.

    There is a difference between no longer talking about what hurt you and no longer being hurt by it.

    I think I’ve confused those things before.

    Maybe that’s why all those different versions of me are still standing in the darkness of this poem.

    The little girl.

    The teenager.

    The woman.

    None of them disappeared when the next one arrived.

    And I don’t think healing requires them to.

    They aren’t monsters that need to be defeated.

    They’re evidence.

    They existed.

    They survived.

    They became part of me.

    But being part of me isn’t the same thing as being all of me.

    That distinction became the most important part of this poem.

    And then there’s Nyx.

    The goddess of night herself.

    I didn’t want her to appear as something frightening. I didn’t even want her to save me.

    I wanted her to recognize me.

    Because who better to understand that carrying darkness doesn’t mean you belong to it than the night itself?

    Maybe she could look at someone who has spent years walking through darkness and understand something that person is only beginning to understand:

    there is a difference
    between becoming familiar
    with the night

    and calling it home.

    I think that might be my favorite idea in the poem.

    Because for a long time, I thought healing meant becoming someone untouched by the things that happened before.

    Someone lighter.

    Someone different.

    Someone who didn’t carry any of it anymore.

    I don’t think that now.

    Some things shape us permanently.

    There are things we survive that change the way we love, trust, react, protect ourselves, and move through the world.

    But being shaped by something doesn’t mean surrendering your identity to it.

    You can carry darkness without being dark.

    You can remember pain without living inside it.

    You can know the night intimately and still choose to walk toward morning.

    Maybe that’s why the poem doesn’t end with the darkness disappearing.

    It ends with light.

    Not sunlight.

    Not some enormous, blinding revelation.

    Just the smallest realization:

    Darkness
    can shape you

    without defining you.

    And maybe

    that’s the first light

    I’ve ever trusted.

    The darkness is still there.

    The difference is that now—

    I know where it ends and I begin.

    Until next time,

    —Destiny

    P.S. Maybe we don’t have to hate every version of ourselves that learned how to survive in the dark. Some of them are the reason we lived long enough to find the light. 🖤

  • Between the Lines #6

    When the Night Whispers Your Name

    There’s something unsettling about hearing your name when no one said it.

    Maybe you’re lying in bed.

    Maybe the house is completely quiet.

    And for half a second, you could swear someone called you.

    Not loudly.

    Just enough to make you stop.

    Listen.

    Maybe even look over your shoulder.

    That was the thought behind When the Night Whispers Your Name.

    At least, that’s where it started.

    Because somewhere while writing it, the person whispering stopped being a ghost.

    And started becoming me.

    When the Night Whispers Your Name

    When the night whispers your name,

    I pretend

    I didn’t hear it.

    I’ve learned

    that some voices

    don’t belong

    to the living.

    Not because they’re ghosts.

    Because memory

    has a remarkable way

    of learning

    how to breathe.

    The daylight

    is kinder.

    It fills empty rooms

    with enough noise

    that I can almost believe

    I’ve become someone else.

    But night—

    night has always

    known the truth.

    It remembers

    every version of me

    I’ve tried

    to outgrow.

    The child

    who mistook silence

    for safety.

    The teenager

    who carried storms

    inside her ribs.

    The woman

    who still apologizes

    before she takes up space.

    They all answer

    when the darkness calls.

    I don’t.

    At least,

    I tell myself

    I don’t.

    But there are evenings

    when I catch myself

    looking over my shoulder

    because I could have sworn

    someone

    just said my name.

    Softly.

    The way people do

    when they love you.

    Or miss you.

    Or mourn you

    before you’re gone.

    Maybe that’s what

    the night has been

    trying to tell me.

    Not that I’m haunted.

    That I have spent

    so many years

    running from myself

    that even my own name

    sounds unfamiliar

    when spoken

    with kindness.

    When the night

    whispers your name,

    listen carefully.

    It may not be

    calling you backward.

    It may be asking

    whether you’ve finally

    become brave enough

    to turn around

    and meet

    the person

    who has been searching

    for you

    all along.

    I think there are certain versions of ourselves we spend years trying to leave behind.

    Not necessarily because we hate who we were.

    Sometimes we just don’t want to remember what that version of us had to carry.

    So we grow.

    We change.

    We get older.

    We build lives around everything that happened afterward.

    And eventually, we start telling ourselves that person doesn’t exist anymore.

    But I don’t think it works like that.

    I think every version of us leaves something behind.

    The child.

    The teenager.

    The person who was scared.

    The person who was angry.

    The person who survived something they didn’t have words for yet.

    They don’t disappear just because we become someone else.

    And sometimes, when everything gets quiet enough, we hear them.

    That’s why I wrote:

    Because memory
    has a remarkable way
    of learning
    how to breathe.

    Memory can feel incredibly alive.

    A smell can bring back a room you haven’t stood in for years.

    A song can bring back a person.

    A sentence can bring back a feeling you thought you’d forgotten.

    And sometimes you can be sitting perfectly still in the present while some part of you is somewhere else entirely.

    That’s its own kind of haunting.

    But I didn’t want this poem to end there.

    Because When the Night Whispers Your Name isn’t really a poem about being haunted by who you used to be.

    It’s about finally turning around.

    There’s a line toward the end that I think holds the entire poem:

    That I have spent
    so many years
    running from myself
    that even my own name
    sounds unfamiliar
    when spoken
    with kindness.

    Sometimes we become so accustomed to criticizing ourselves that kindness feels suspicious.

    Sometimes we’re much better at extending grace to the people we used to be than the person we are right now.

    And sometimes the version of ourselves we’ve been trying so hard to escape isn’t chasing us at all.

    Maybe she’s just waiting to be acknowledged.

    Maybe she wants someone to finally look at her without shame.

    Maybe she wants to hear her own name spoken gently.

    So perhaps when the night whispers your name, you don’t always have to run from it.

    Sometimes you can turn around.

    Sometimes you can listen.

    Sometimes you might discover that the thing you thought was haunting you…

    was simply a piece of yourself waiting for you to come back.

    Until next time,

    — Destiny

    P.S. If you could sit down with one past version of yourself for five minutes, which version would you choose—and what would you tell them?

  • Between the Lines #5: Monsters

    I used to think growing up meant learning that monsters weren’t real.

    Monsters

    As we got older,
    the monsters crept from under our beds
    to inside our heads.

    We stopped checking closets.

    Stopped leaving
    the hallway light on.

    Stopped pulling blankets
    over our faces
    because someone told us

    there was nothing there.

    And we believed them.

    For a while.

    We laughed
    at the children we used to be.

    Afraid of shadows.

    Afraid of footsteps.

    Afraid of something
    reaching from beneath the bed
    and grabbing our ankles.

    We didn’t know yet

    that monsters grow up too.

    They stop hiding
    beneath mattresses

    and start answering
    to ordinary names.

    Anxiety.

    Grief.

    Shame.

    Trauma.

    Loneliness.

    The voice that says
    everyone you love
    will eventually leave.

    The memory
    that waits until 2 a.m.
    to remind you
    it never really went anywhere.

    The fear
    that maybe you are difficult to love.

    The thought
    that everyone else
    was given instructions
    for being alive

    and somehow
    yours got lost.

    As children,

    we could run
    to another room.

    Climb into someone’s bed.

    Whisper,

    “I’m scared.”

    And sometimes
    that was enough.

    Someone would check the closet.

    Look beneath the bed.

    Turn on the light.

    Promise us

    nothing was there.

    God,

    I miss when fear
    could be proven wrong
    with a flashlight.

    Because now

    the monster knows my name.

    It knows my history.

    It knows exactly
    which memories
    to pull from the shelf

    when I am finally
    having a good day.

    It knows
    which insecurities
    still have teeth.

    It knows how to sound
    exactly like me.

    That’s the cruelest part.

    Eventually,

    you stop knowing

    which thoughts
    belong to you

    and which ones
    belong to the monster.

    So I became
    my own night-light.

    My own open door.

    My own voice
    in the darkness saying,

    “There’s nothing there.”

    Even when
    I wasn’t sure.

    Especially when
    I wasn’t sure.

    As we got older,

    the monsters crept
    from under our beds

    to inside our heads.

    And maybe growing up

    was never about
    discovering

    that monsters
    aren’t real.

    Maybe it was realizing

    no one else

    can check beneath the bed

    for us anymore.

    So now,

    when the darkness comes,

    I sit beside
    the frightened child
    still living inside me.

    I take her hand.

    I turn on the light.

    And together,

    we remind the monsters

    that this time—

    they’re the ones

    who should be afraid of us.

    Between the Lines

    When I was little, monsters were easy.

    Not necessarily less scary—but easier.

    They lived under beds.

    Inside closets.

    In dark hallways.

    Behind doors that looked completely harmless during the day but somehow became suspicious as hell once the lights went out.

    And when you were scared, you could call for someone.

    Someone bigger would come into the room, turn on the light, open the closet, look underneath the bed, and show you there was nothing there.

    Fear could be proven wrong.

    I think that’s what sits underneath this poem more than anything else.

    God, I miss when fear could be proven wrong with a flashlight.

    Because somewhere along the way, the monsters changed.

    They stopped having claws and shadows and glowing eyes.

    They became things like anxiety.

    Grief.

    Shame.

    Trauma.

    Loneliness.

    Memories.

    The things we tell ourselves when it’s late and everything feels heavier than it did during the day.

    And nobody can walk into the room and prove those things aren’t there.

    Nobody can shine a flashlight underneath your thoughts.

    That might be one of the cruelest parts of growing up.

    But while writing this poem, I realized something else.

    When I was a child, I needed someone else to turn on the light.

    Now I can do it myself.

    Not always.

    Not perfectly.

    And sometimes I turn it on with shaking hands.

    But I can sit beside the younger versions of myself who are still scared. I can remind them that we survived the things we once thought we wouldn’t. I can question the voice that tells me every fear is a fact simply because it sounds like my own.

    Maybe that’s part of growing up, too.

    Not becoming fearless.

    Not finally reaching some magical age where the monsters disappear.

    Just learning that when they come back, you don’t have to hide beneath the blankets anymore.

    You can turn on the light yourself.

    And maybe, eventually, the monsters learn to be afraid of you.

    Until next time,

    —Destiny

    P.S. What was the thing you were most afraid of in the dark when you were a kid?

  • Between the Lines #4: When the Wind Carries Secrets

    Some things are easier to say when you don’t know who’s listening.

    When the wind carries secrets,
    I wonder if mine
    are still looking for me.

    I have whispered so many things
    into the open air—
    names I no longer say aloud,
    prayers that never reached heaven,
    apologies that belonged
    to someone else.

    I imagine the wind
    keeping them all.

    Tucking them beneath its ribs,
    carrying them over oceans,
    through forests,
    past houses where little girls
    still believe their mothers
    will always protect them.

    Maybe that’s why
    it never stops moving.

    Maybe grief
    has made it too heavy
    to rest.

    I have secrets
    that still wake before I do.

    Secrets that smell like hospitals
    and old bedrooms.

    Secrets that remember
    what my body spent years
    trying to forget.

    I don’t think silence
    buries anything.

    I think it teaches memories
    how to echo.

    Sometimes the wind
    finds me again.

    It slips through cracked windows.
    Lifts my hair from my shoulders.
    Whispers my own voice
    back to me—

    only older.

    Softer.

    Like someone
    who survived the telling.

    I wonder
    how many of us
    are breathing
    the same air.

    How many confessions
    have passed through my lungs.

    How many mothers
    never heard the words
    their children carried.

    How many lovers
    mistook silence
    for peace.

    The wind knows.

    It has listened
    to every goodbye
    spoken too late.

    Every I’m sorry
    that arrived
    after the damage.

    Every I love you
    that died
    on the tip of a tongue.

    When the wind carries secrets,

    I hope it carries this one gently—

    I survived.

    Not gracefully.

    Not without breaking.

    But enough

    that I can finally say it

    without whispering.

    And maybe,

    just maybe,

    the wind isn’t carrying my secrets away.

    Maybe

    it’s carrying them

    to someone

    who thought

    they were the only one.

    I think some things become harder to say the longer we carry them.

    Eventually, they stop feeling like words and start feeling like weight.

    That’s where this poem came from.

    I liked the idea of the wind as something that has heard everything—the things we whispered when nobody was around, the apologies we never received, the words we never managed to say, and the stories we spent years keeping quiet.

    But somewhere while writing it, the wind stopped feeling like something that was taking secrets away.

    It started feeling like something connecting us.

    Because maybe the things we’re convinced we have to carry quietly aren’t as uniquely ours as we think.

    Maybe somewhere, someone else has whispered the same thing.

    And maybe surviving something doesn’t always mean being able to talk about it loudly.

    Sometimes being able to finally say, “I survived,” without whispering is enough.

    Until next time,

    —Destiny

    P.S. If the wind could carry away one thing you’ve never been able to say out loud, would you let it?

    Fediverse Reactions

  • Sunday Things #5

    Apparently, the second I started feeling better, I forgot I had surgery.

    Not completely.

    Just enough to become a problem. 😂

    Last week, I was talking about how strange it felt to finally start feeling like myself again.

    This week?

    I apparently took that as a challenge.

    I went out to dinner.

    I picked up kids.

    I had sleepovers.

    I baked cupcakes.

    I got my nails done.

    I went swimming.

    I went to a birthday party.

    I stayed up half the night with a sick kid.

    And somewhere in there, I apparently decided recovery was over because I could finally move around without immediately regretting my existence.

    It is not.

    For the record.

    I’m definitely feeling better, but if I do too much, I still feel it in my hips and lower back.

    Apparently feeling better and actually being completely recovered are two different things.

    Okay, everybody calm the fuck down.

    I said BETTER, not BRAND NEW. 😂

    ☕ This Week’s Comfort

    Honestly?

    People.

    Which feels weird to say after spending the last few weeks wanting nothing more than my bed, my recliner, and everybody to leave me alone. 😂

    Monday night, my best friend picked me up and took me to BDUBS.

    Afterward, we sat in her car for about an hour listening to music and talking.

    Then somehow we spent another two hours sitting on the porch saying random words just to see how thick our accents were.

    I don’t know.

    Apparently this is what friendship looks like in your thirties. 😂

    There were also lunches out.

    King of the Hill in the recliner.

    A very necessary nail appointment.

    And beef and noodles.

    Oh, the beef and noodles.

    I had been craving something and couldn’t figure out what it was.

    Then I got out of the shower Friday and it hit me:

    BEEF AND NOODLES.

    I got on DoorDash and ordered everything before I even dried off.

    There are moments in life when you have to have priorities.

    That was one of them.

    📸 Through My Lens

    There were a lot of little moments worth keeping this week.

    Monday, I picked my niece up from school and helped her wrap her girlfriend’s birthday gifts for Thursday.

    Then Tuesday, my younger niece turned four.

    Four.

    I genuinely don’t understand how that happened.

    She was born three months early and was once small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.

    Now she’s more than half my height. 🥲

    I made her birthday outfit, and I gave her a little toy piano for her birthday.

    She—and both of the boys—absolutely love it.

    Unfortunately, the piano later betrayed her.

    She managed to get her finger stuck between the keys and started going:

    “Ow. Ow. Ow. NeeNee!”

    I got her finger out and asked why she put it in there in the first place.

    She said:

    “I don’t know!”

    Then she looked at me.

    Looked at the piano.

    Looked back at me.

    And said:

    “That mother fucker.”

    😭😂

    I couldn’t help it.

    I laughed.

    Her birthday party was Saturday. My sister made the cutest cake, she loved all of her presents, and we went swimming.

    It was fun.

    And overstimulating.

    But mostly, I kept looking at this little girl who used to fit in the palm of my hand and wondering how the hell four years went by that fast.

    💭 A Thought I’ve Been Carrying

    Wednesday was my follow-up appointment.

    And I finally heard the words I have been waiting to hear:

    I CAN PICK THE KIDDOS UP AGAIN.

    😭

    Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for that?!

    Naturally, my niece called afterward to ask how my appointment went—and, more importantly, whether I was allowed to pick her and the boys up yet.

    Priorities. 😂

    So I picked them up early from the sitter.

    Because obviously.

    But the appointment also gave me the next part of this whole weird journey.

    For the next three to six months, I’ll be getting a monthly injection that will put me into a medically induced menopause.

    At 33.

    Because apparently I am an overachiever.

    The goal is to help treat what remains of my endometriosis and shrink my fibroid. And at the end of all of this, my doctor believes I’ll have a better chance of getting pregnant.

    Which is strange to think about.

    I’m about to temporarily shut down the very system I’m hoping will eventually help me have a baby.

    There’s something almost absurd about that.

    But hopeful, too.

    This whole process has been one weird contradiction after another.

    Surgery so I can heal.

    Menopause because I want a baby.

    Feeling better while still recovering.

    Being excited and absolutely terrified at the same time.

    Apparently, two things can be true at once.

    I’m learning that a lot lately.

    ❤️ This Week’s Gratitude

    This one belongs to the little moments.

    My niece staying the night when she almost never wants to.

    Making clay keychains together.

    Baking chocolate cupcakes and decorating them with pink and purple icing, pink glitter, and unicorn toppers.

    Her doing my makeup.

    Watching KPop Demon Hunters.

    Random dancing.

    Doing a Facebook Live for absolutely no reason.

    And eventually having her curled up asleep in my lap.

    There was also a conversation with my boyfriend this week about babies.

    And proposals.

    Apparently his current proposal plan involves taking me somewhere near a cliff so that if I say no, I can “accidentally” fall off.

    So.

    That’s comforting.

    😂

    I can’t stand him sometimes.

    But underneath the jokes, there are conversations happening now that once felt really far away.

    Marriage.

    A baby.

    Our future.

    And after everything my body has been through lately, there is something really nice about talking about what might come next instead of only thinking about what hurts right now.

    😂 This Week’s “Well…That Happened.”

    Oh, Sunday.

    Sweet, innocent Sunday.

    On Saturday, I wrote this:

    Please, I’m begging you, please let me just relax today, and do nothing. At all. I’m begging you.

    —Destiny
    Written on Saturday.

    Apparently Sunday took that personally.

    It technically started at 12:23 a.m.

    I hadn’t even been to sleep yet because every time I started dozing off, my nephew would toss, turn, whine, or cough.

    Then he puked.

    On me.

    And the bed.

    So there I was, shortly after midnight, cleaning vomit and trying to get a sick kid settled back down.

    Eventually, he fell asleep lying on my stomach.

    Poor DooDoos. 😩

    He was up and down for most of the night, so sleep was basically a rumor.

    By morning, I was on the couch watching CaRtOoNz with one nephew coughing, snotting, and crying while the other was growling like a demon baby.

    If you’ve ever seen Baby Jack-Jack from The Incredibles?

    That.

    It wasn’t even 10 a.m.

    Eventually, Demon Baby left for a visit with his mom and dad, and I developed a craving.

    Texas Roadhouse.

    And when I say craving, I mean mission.

    So yes.

    I took the sick nephew with us.

    Judge me. 🤷🏻‍♀️

    We came home.

    I took a nap.

    My nephew eventually got picked up.

    And I planted myself in the recliner, turned on King of the Hill, and have barely moved since.

    I’m on the final season now.

    And remember that laundry I was supposed to do today?

    Yeah.

    I didn’t do laundry. 😂

    You know what?

    It’ll still be dirty tomorrow.

    Until next time,

    —Destiny

    P.S. What’s something you absolutely should have done this weekend…but decided could become Monday’s problem instead?