Over the past few months my world has changed. It has changed drastically, as well as minimally.

The minimal changes? My small things… I still worry about the same silly things, like whether or not I exercise enough, whether I will make enough money in my profession, if I am getting too old not to take things more seriously… I’m still often tired. I still love big. I still would rather make others laugh more than anything in the world. I still agonize, make choices, feel concern, change a little bit here and there.

The drastic?

The drastic is harder to grasp. I may be a hard-working woman, but a smart woman I am not. I don’t exactly know how to put into words the changes I have undergone in the past few months… and it has very little to do with self-actualization, body dysmorphia, guilt, or any of the other usuals. My usuals… my minimals… they’re more of a distant echo, rather than a loud roar reverberating in my head. The Sad Dragon isn’t attacking me anymore.

It’s attacking the hate, the oppression, the devastation… it’s attacking the feeling of impending doom that I don’t think all Americans even vaguely understand. It’s attacking the misunderstandings, the breaking relationships, the family members that refuse to have respectful discussion about this ugly and confusing time in our history.

It is even attacking the part of myself that wants to bitch and complain about the minimals again, but it’s not going to battle with that part of myself. It’s just giving it a snort and a scoff, pushing it over with an eye-roll because we have much more important things to worry about.

“Oh, you’re worried about money again, because you chose to be an artist for a living?“ it seems to say. “We’ve had this conversation, and we know how it ends— YOU CHOOSE YOUR ART OVER MONEY. YOU’LL FIGURE IT OUT. Are we done here?”  

There’s just no time for that nonsense… Now we have a future, a tomorrow that can crumble on my watch if I am not careful. I have been blessed the promise of a husband, a whole new family that I get to join as well as create. It is an honor that I am able to walk into this tomorrow, and I refuse to let it fall apart on my watch. I refuse to become useless to my own cause.

If I choose to listen to the voices that tell me I am unworthy, then I am useless to my cause.

If I choose to whisper to my heart that my passions are pointless junk, not worthy of money,  and not worthy to my community, then I am useless to my cause.

If I choose to let my past dictate how I behave in my future relationships, then I am useless to my cause.

If I choose to treat my body with disrespect, lack of sleep, lack of nutrition, and lack of respect for a sustainable environment, then I am useless to my cause.

If I choose to say “no” to work that I love out of laziness, fear, or lack of worth, then I am useless to my cause.

If I choose to say “It’s Hopeless” or “No one will listen to me anyway” rather than “I can do something about this” or “I just have to find the right way to communicate” than I am useless to my cause.

My family, my community, my friends, my country. I choose to be useful to you.

Thank you, Sad Dragon, for teaching me how to be a fighter… for not letting me just lay down in comfortable indifference. I have never been able to ignore you, never been able to just sigh and say “It’s fine.”  It has to be for a reason.

And with the things that are coming..the things that will anchor me as well as try to make me stumble, I am grateful for what I used to think was a burden within me.

It’s not a burden. It’s not a problem.

It’s a fucking superpower.