“It takes a second birth, an awakening for us to speak our first words. Until then, we are merely repeating”

Setting the stage

My entire life was spent on a stage, made up in makeup, under the bright lights, singing and performing. Arriving in Nashville 10 years ago, I didn’t know I would be entering a new stage, the stages of grief and healing, where I would begin to unearth the brutal yet enlightening truth of discovering Who I truly Am. My time there became a journey of unlearning. It was a dismantling and a rebuilding. Years spent traveling through the archives of memories of time to understand my past; going back so I could go forward - all along shedding the layers of who I was told I was and was supposed to be, reclaiming the parts of myself that I lost to performing, placating, pleasing. The depth of my own suffering led to an inner reckoning and awakening - first leading me so far down into the darkness of my despair that I had no choice but to begin to uncover what was hidden, but always there. Then, where I once believed this all would have just buried me, what I found underneath was what had been neglected; my true nature, my essence. In the darkness of this time, I began to see myself in a new light. I came to know my own soul, plant new seeds, nurture and mature in my own growth. I grew deeper roots and stretched wide, so that I could begin breaking new ground and branching out - blooming into who I was always meant to be.