Losing It All Set Me Free

By Jennifer Healey

Losing it all set me free. I crawled from what I hated, swam

toward what felt like me — home, but new, but old too.

Toward what I always wanted to do: create something new.

Unlearning how to be who I never was.

Learning how to be me. Somehow, reborn.

Learning to breathe through and be okay with

how unfathomable it all is.

This is what I heard:

You are not a statue, made of stone.

It feels like you’re breaking but that’s not

absolutely so. You’re reaching into the depths,

laying things to rest.

You’re together fluid and rooted, connected and free.

These are the things you’re learning to be.

And with that learning comes all that you’re unlearning.

You set new boundaries to weed out what feels wrong.

You start questioning the thoughts that tell you

you’re wrong. You stop saying yes. You start saying,

“let me check my values first.”

You go back to heart, the heart you strayed from

for so long.

So you say you’re broken? Yes and no.

For with your breaking comes your unbreaking.

There in that space, between sense and places,

you might just see it:

the you you’re becoming is home, too.

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