Overcorrecting

I feel a lot of my work can be boiled down to undoing my overcorrecting

Like when you’re so afraid of going right you go left

I was so afraid of being loud I became silent

So afraid of being a burden I erased myself

It’s so sad how much of my self-hate

Was a result of how the world reacted to my unabashed, juvenile self-love

Was it really worth it? Was the manageable noise and the segregated conversation really worth how much I gutted myself?

Now I am running a triathlon every day to get back to even an inch of that freedom

The freedom of walking belly forward, proud to take up space