becoming a radiant maverick.

i spent the day in salt lake city perusing antique shops
and saw some old boots with the word MAVERICK printed on the bottom.
i immediately remembered a short time i spent at a friend's ranch when i was younger...
a maverick was an animal that hadn't been branded, that nobody really "owned".
an independent creature.

and i realized
that i felt like a motherless calf,
like a free creature.
independent.
and i knew that independence requires courage.


in one of the greatest ted talks ever given,
brene brown defines courage as:

"to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart."

and that idea has been troubling me.
i mean,
it's absolutely brilliant
and i feel like i am telling the story of who i am with my whole heart,
with all of the contents of my soul and spirit...
but if i might just add to that definition with:

"to tell the whole story of who you are with your whole heart."

and i had to be honest with myself and say
i most certainly was not doing that.

so i have been taking time to reconcile all the bits and parts of me
and uncaging all the little singing birds underneath my ribs
and just letting them fly free with the rest.

i've spent so long trying to reconcile my whole story with the outside world
that i have caged parts of myself in the process.

it has taken Ultimate Life Lows to realize i should have been reconciling what was already there
and ignoring the things that were not.

but now,
i'm prepared. i'm ready.

suddenly,
the world is ... there. right in front of me.
and it's like it has been saying, "oh... hello. i've been waiting for you."

i have never, ever felt more free.
ever.

xo.