*Warning: naughty language ahead!

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Life made me tough.

I could drink you under the table and punch you over one.
I masked all emotion and cradled it in booze and parties.
I didn’t deal with anything.
I didn’t acknowledge anything.
I didn’t even know who I was outside of my “socially acceptable drinking.”
Proudly acknowledging that I needed that first drink to have a personality.

I was as tough as tungsten. Tungsten is the strongest out of any natural metal, but in terms of impact strength, tungsten is weak—it’s a brittle metal that’s known to shatter on impact. And boy did life impact me.

You know when life feels like it’s falling the fuck apart; like everything is just fucked, and you hate who you are and where you are, but you mask it in pretty smiles and fun parties.

Yup, that’s the best part of falling apart. When you realise that this version of you is no longer serving your greatest good and shit needs to start changing.

I grew up in a generation of “cowboys don’t cry,” “shhh, it’s okay,” and, “crying makes you weak.”

Ha, have you ever cried so much that your belly aches, your eyes are swollen, and you’ve been awake all night overthinking stupid fucking shit? When it hurts so bad, you just want it all to end?

But you got up in the morning, and you washed your face. You probably avoided yourself in the mirror and faced the world as best you could.

To me, that’s not weak; that takes courage.
To meet yourself in a place of darkness takes strength.
Feeling this through.
Finding forgiveness.
Forgiving yourself.
That shit takes strength.

Pretending your own toxic shit doesn’t affect the people around you, the ones you apparently love.
That is weak.

Hurting them because you feel hurt inside, drinking, and drugging reality away, boosting ego on social media, being toxic productive.
That shit is weak.

I used to be a bad bitch,
Then I became a sad bitch.

Then I sat with my emotions and gave them space.
I unpacked my backpack.
I threw all my pieces on the floor.
I became unravelled.

But as I picked up the pieces of the parts I wanted to keep.
I left the parts that did not serve me and kept the parts of me that honoured my truth.

When I walk in my truth,
I feel more at peace. I feel more love for my life.

And as I shed more and more layers and walk more fiercely in my truth while I slay my own demons and the parts of me that “keep going back for more,” the more I release control and go with the flow of the stream. The more life keeps gifting me beautifully with its reminders of pure love.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have moments of darkness—I still lose my shit; I still challenge the lessons; I still fuck up. The only difference is now I face up to it. I don’t hide it; I don’t mask it or project it onto everyone else.

I sit the fuck with it. I acknowledge it and my part in it.

I feel it.

I used to be a bad bitch who never showed emotion.
Now I am a warrior bitch who smiles while she cries.

~