Emily Dickinson wrote my favorite quote of all time, and it just so happens that she is my ancestor. Coincidence, intuitive knowing, or maybe a bloodline connection? Either way, she so beautifully said-

“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”

Every time I read that quote, it is like the first time; it takes my breath away. Words can do that to us.

And now, more than ever, that quote is calling to me.

I realized recently that I have been in the dark. I’ve been sitting in the shadows for so long, my eyes adjusted, and I wasn’t fully aware how deep the darkness had crept in. I was the boiling frog, happily swimming about as the heat was slowly turned up, unaware that it was killing me.

I Stockholm syndrome’d myself; slowly adjusting my ideals, my morals, my values, and my boundaries, to a point I myself cannot even fully grasp.

I’ve wandered so far from the girl I was, the parent I was, the wife and the woman- I don’t even recognize myself most days.

I am a version of the woman I used to be, and I don’t particularly like this version.

And so I’ve had an epiphany, of sorts. I realized that there are things that I cannot control, and things that are not my fault, but those hurt anyway.

Then there are things that are my doing, that I cannot change, and those hurt worse.

There are people whom you can love with all your being, and it won’t make them love you back. And, people who deserve our energy, yet we don’t have enough for them at the end of the day.

There are some roads that you just have to walk to the end, and others that you should have stepped off of a long time ago.

And that is how we get lost. That is how I got lost.

But, I see it now. I see the crossroads that I am standing at, I see Hecate with her hounds, and I know I have a choice— I can keep the path I have been walking, or I can try a new route.

Both are unknown, but one is more familiar; that is the one I have been on.

And so it is decided.

Off I go with lanterns, looking for myself.

Personal Journal: