Expansion
As a survivor of childhood trauma, I am not a natural risk taker. I am the dutiful eldest daughter of five children who spent most of my life caretaking, moving from my first family to my own family, and somewhere along the way, folding in children belonging to other families. While it has been an honor to love and be loved by each one of them, last year the weight of being a parent my entire life finally needed to be set down and recalibrated. Up until this point, there had not been an opportunity to offer myself an extended period of time to allow my nervous system the healing, rest, discovery, and play it needed to reset – not as a child, not in high school, not in college, and certainly not in the Land of Adulting. As many of you witnessed, I pressed pause on one version of me and pressed play on another. Regardless of any sacrifices we made as a family to give me this year, I want to acknowledge the privilege from which I share this update.
In the first weeks and months following the transition, I showed up to my laptop and iPad eager to write and illustrate children’s books, but flow eluded me. Eventually, my therapist suggested that if I wanted to engage with flow, I might need to release my plan and give myself over to where flow wanted to lead me. Each time I did, I found myself in the room with one child’s story. It was the same child who followed me everywhere outside of my creative space: whispering to come play, stomping her feet to be seen, and begging for me to come back for her. And each day I attempted pen to paper, she made her case by showing up with her stories and offering her secrets. As if she had made a back alley deal with the universe, I would not be charged with others’ stories until I honored her by rescuing her from the dark, dressing her wounds, and restoring our wholeness.
After the first illustrated stories bubbled up from childhood, I stopped sharing my work on the blog and made the decision to write an illustrated memoir. Curt Thompson, a therapist and author, once said,”... growth is the expanding awareness of the unfinished business we still need attend to.” So, I spent the year attending to the unfinished business set before me. Going back through my developmental story as who I am now, while acknowledging and holding the hand of the little girl within me, was the single most healing gift of my life thus far. After I completed the book, I took some time to think about how I wanted to move forward.
As far as my work, I find myself unwilling to assign myself one or two identities based around a particular role, and instead find my identity tethered to my values in a new way. When I move inside my values, expansion doesn’t feel limited because it’s just different expressions of the same themes and love. Whether illustrating, writing, or teaching, my purpose has always remained the same– to see, to elevate, and to empower the unseen. While choosing the next best step for me, I heard Morgan Harper Nichols mention one day she was no longer thinking about herself in terms of what she does but what does she want to fold into her life? So, not surprising, I found a way to fold students full time back into my life. However, this time I am doing it in a way more aligned my gifts and passions.
If you are here reading this through my subscription, I need you to know you that your presence has meant the world to me, knowing you sat on the other side of my pages with love and curiosity. I hope you will stay with me as I fold more of me into the way I move in the world, and I hope I encourage you to do the same. If we are lucky, we will discover something new and lovely about ourselves every season for the rest of our lives.
If you haven’t checked out my updated website, I invite you to do so. Send your young people to me, and I will help any way I can!
So. Much. Love.
-Sarah