Dear You,

I have been in a cocoon, and feel ready to emerge. I needed to close myself off to the world to cater to some things; mostly my mental health and extreme self care. Although I feel ready to come out of the cave, I am realizing working on my extreme self care doesn’t stop. More than anything, I need to focus on my needs, my dreams, my goals, my people, my job, my life, my pride, and, really finding out who I am through self awareness. It is a challenge. It definitely isn’t easy. However, it is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding experiences in my life.

What is pushing me through to beat every day, and to beat away the dark clouds on bad days, is the motivation to be one of the greats. I can feel it fill up inside me, and have readied my life goal, at least at this step.

I want to better myself in every way. I want to constantly improve, achieve great things, and especially better myself so that I can be closer to you. I want to  love more of myself so that I won’t be so afraid of loosing you. I have always loved and cared for every soul who has passed through my life. But now more than ever, I have such a deeper appreciation for the genuine souls who see me, hold my heart in their hands, and embrace me no matter what they saw me do, say, think, or know of me.

I will be honest. I am terrified of social media and responding to the overwhelming amount of texts, emails, phone calls, etc. I still have a seed of fear that is beyond concerned that my response will alter your opinion of me, which will raise the risk of damaging our relationship, which makes me take so much time to respond.
This is a small mental insight into why it sometimes takes me so long to respond.

Looking at it all with a different perspective, I realize that can be very selfish. What you think of me is none of my business.
However, I can’t seem to alter my behavior as easily, even with that knowledge. When my anxiety is active, I’m too busy trying not to make a mistake, or too busy replaying every enteraction to make sure no mistakes were made.
I’m also too busy to think about us. I’m too busy thinking about me and doing you wrong, when all I want is to look perfect to you, be there for you, and pour words of support and love in your ear.
I am now realizing that all I’m doing is not embracing you, accepting you, listening to you or being in the moment with you, which is unfair to you. I don’t bring all of myself to almost any situation, and I’m sorry. That’s why you may not know what I want, what hurts, what makes me go crazy, how I actually laugh, how my voice sounds relaxed, or what I’m thinking, because I have already convinced myself it may not be worth sharing. Or I may have convinced myself how I want to survive and how to display myself around you. Or maybe, I can’t control it and perform for you without knowing.

I am working now. I am tired of filling my life with countless emojis, exclamation points, squeals, nervous giggles, filling in the silence, and automatically covering and smothering myself for the sake of you or the conversation or situation. No one asked, and I would do it anyway.
I’m tired of always being terrified of sharing pieces of myself, standing up for myself, or saying what I feel, because that always causes me to ruminate and repeat, repeat, repeat, and reflect and self shame, shame, shame.

It’s a fear I’m learning to battle.  I am ready now to say, thank you for your continued kindness and patience. If you’d like to know more, I can tell you that I still won’t respond for 3-5 business days on every platform, except if it’s urgent. I will continue to focus on what I am doing until I have a spare 30 minutes to sit down and catch up.
Which is why I posted the pic below. I am not ashamed to say, I am a different Leah than I was .before. I realized I love swearing more than I thought- (and won’t be editing myself anytime soon!), I love being silent more than I thought, and listening more than I thought. I have never before been so proud of the job I have and team I am a part of- being part of the front desk crew and family at Damask Tattoo.

I have never before realized JUST how many beautiful, wonderful, supportive, loving people I have in my life that care about me. I am still learning to completely accept and feel deserving of the love given to me, and know the understanding of how lovely you all are will only deepen the more I open. It’s a work in progress, and I’m ready to talk about/share/hold hands together while we all walk our paths.

I will be standing up straight. And will soon be standing straighter.
I will be confident. And I will soon have more confidence.
I will be in control. And I will soon have control over what I can’t in myself now.
I will be honest. And I will soon have more honesty in all areas.

I am working torwards being a better person.
I am working torwards having a stronger heart.
And a stronger mind.
I am working torwards being more honest with my thoughts, answers, feelings and ideas.

I am tired of making myself the victim.
Of habitually falling into the mold of a hurt/weak/injured/hunch postured human.
Who can’t do anything for herself except giggle, smile, and go into panic survival social mode.
I am tired. Worn out, and drained of feeling/doing/living this way.

But somehow, with no energy left, I have a kindling, fireful spark, ready to be fuel for something else, something new. I am ready to be a “La Loba” woman, a wild woman.

A thought that started this process- Who says you have to conform to being a worker bee, if you’re better at being a butterfly? Don’t forget your bones and where they come from.

I could type for days, so I will end here. Exciting art posts, projects and life events to come, and excited to be more active on social media so I can see more of your lives as well. Thank you all again for everything, from all the relationships that started from childhood to adulthood that have been there for me, I appreciate you. 🖤🖤🖤